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The marriageable age, in Judaism, is highly gender-specific. Although boys were regarded, by classical rabbinic literature, as sexual beings once they had reached 9 years of age, girls were regarded as sexual beings from the age of just 3. According to the Talmud, it was permissible for an adult male to have sexual intercourse with a 3 year old girl, if she was maritally single; girls could be betrothed (Hebrew: erusin) and married (Hebrew: nissu'in) at this age.

By contrast, the earliest point at which a male is permitted to become betrothed (erusin) is the age of majority. Marriage itself (nissu'in) is distinct from betrothal (erusin), which is merely a binding promise to marry at a later point; according to the Talmud, betrothal should occur at least 30 days before the corresponding marriage, and therefore the marriageable age would be the age of maturity plus 30 days, for males.

Child marriage was thus possible, due to the very low marriageable age for females. As a ketannah was completely subject to her father's authority, he father could arrange a marriage for her, whether she agreed to it or not; similarly her father could accept a divorce document (get) on her behalf. According to the Talmud, if the marriage did end (due to divorce or the husband's death), any further marriages were optional; the ketannah had the right to annul them. If the father was dead, or missing, the brothers of the ketannah, collectively, had the right to arrange a marriage for her, as had her mother, although in these situations a ketannah would always have the right to annul her marriage, even if it was the first.

In the Talmud, there is inconclusive debate about whether the na'arah should be treated like the ketannah in relation to marriage and its annulment, or whether she should have the freedom to marry as she wished, like the bogeret.

Annulment of child marriage

For a ketannah, the first marriage imposed on her by her father was completely compulsory for her; the standard adult divorce process was necessary to terminate it. However, according to the Talmud, if the marriage did end (due to divorce or the husband's death), any further marriages were optional; the ketannah had the right to annul them. In the Talmud's view, for marriages imposed on a ketannah by someone other than her father (due to the father's absence), the ketannah always had the right to annul them, even the first.

The choice of a ketannah to annul a marriage, known in Hebrew as mi'un (literally meaning refusal/denial/protest), lead to a true annulment, not a divorce; a divorce document (get) was not necessary, and a ketannah who did this was not regarded by legal regulations as a divorcee, in relation to the marriage. Unlike divorce, mi'un was regarded with distaste by many rabbinic writers, even in the Talmud; in earlier classical Judaism, one major faction - the House of Shammai - argued that such annulment rights only existed during the betrothal period (erusin), and not once the actual marriage (nissu'in) had begun.

The mi'un did not need to be explicitly declared for the annulment to take effect. If a ketannah merely demonstrated that she disapproved of the marriage, this would constitute annulment; for example, she could betroth (erusin) herself to another man, which for a ketannah would automatically annul her previous marriage (except where the previous marriage was the first marriage imposed on her by her father). However, if the marriage had begun when the girl was at least 6 years old, and she had expressed her consent to it, she was expected to perform any annulment via a formal declaration, unless she had been less than 10 years old when the marriage began, and had not appeared to fully appreciate what was going on.

For a formal declaration of mi'un, the usual procedure was for the ketannah to say I do not wish to live with my husband, in the presence of two witnesses; her annulment would take effect immediately after this was said. In classical times, it was customary to also write a get mi'un, a document in which the ketannah declares I do not like him; he does not please me; I do not wish to remain with him as his wife; the document was merely a record, and was not necessary for the annulment to take place. In the middle ages, the use of such a document had dropped out of favour, instead the witnesses would create a documentary record containing the following formula:

On , the day of the month , in the year according to the era, , daughter of , protested before us and said, "My mother deceived me and gave me in marriage to , son of , and now I declare before you that I do not desire him, and that I will not stay with him". We have examined this and are satisfied that the girl is yet a minor, and have written and signed and given to her as a document and a clear proof. , witness. , witness.

As mentioned above, there is an inconclusive dispute in the Talmud about whether a na'arah had the same restrictions or annulment rights as a ketannah.

In practice

Rather than being seen as merely a literary device to quickly describe the populating of the earth, the biblical instruction to go forth and multiply was interpreted by the classical rabbis to mean that it was the duty of every male Jew to marry as soon as possible; this duty was thought by them to end once the husband had fathered both a son and a daughter, although they also argued that no man should live without a wife, even after he has several children .

In mediaeval times, cultural pressure within Jewish communities lead to most girls being married while they were still children - before they had become a bogeret. Boys too, were under cultural pressure; several Talmudic rabbis urged that boys should be married as soon as they reach the age of majority. Indeed, anyone unmarried after the age of twenty was said to have been cursed by God; rabbinical courts frequently tried to compel an individual to marry, if they had passed the age of twenty without marriage. Nevertheless, the classical rabbis viewed study of the Torah as a valid reason for remaining unmarried, although they were only rarely willing to regard life-long celibacy favourably.

Despite the young threshold for marriage, marriages with a large age gap between the spouses (eg. between a young man and an old woman) were thoroughly opposed by the classical rabbis. In mediaeval times, cultural pressure within Jewish communities lead to most girls being married while they were still children - before they had become a bogeret. However, in the later middle ages, many rabbis tried to abolish child marriage altogether; this, though, was due to their distaste for mi'un, rather than due to any concern about paedophilia. Effectively, child marriage became nearly obsolete in Judaism; in modern times, it is an extremely rare event, as most areas with large Jewish communities have national laws against child marriage.

References

1. ^  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Majority". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
2. Niddah 44b
3. Kiddushin, 50b
4. Ketubot 57b
5. Ketubot, 64b
6. ^  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Mi'un". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
7. ^ Kiddushin 43b
8. ^ Kiddushin 44a
9. Yebamot 107a
10. ^ Yebamot 108a
11. Yebamot 109a
12. Yebamot 107a
13. Yebamot 107b
14. Gittin 65a
15. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Gerushin 11:3
16. Genesis 1:28
17. Maimonides, Minyan haMitzvot, 212
18. Yebamot 61a
19. Yebamot 61a
20. Kiddushin (tosafot) 41a
21. Sanhedrin 76b
22. Kiddushin 29b
23. Jewish Encyclopedia, Marriage Laws
24. Yebamot 63b
25. Yebamot 44a
26. Sanhedrin 76a
27. Kiddushin (tosafot) 41a