my understanding that pedophilia as a person having sex with the prepubescent. no age limitation. generally, girls has her menstruation in about 12 years, boy gets his wet dream on about 15 years old. human are ready mentally and hormonal as they get menstruation or wet dream. i think it no problem to marry with 12 years old if they mentally and hormonal ready enough to marry.
Granted, from what I understand, for generations that's how it was practiced throughout the world. However, what is expected of 12-15 year olds now as opposed to what was expected then are vastly different. And what is expected in a marriage is vastly different as well.
12 year old girls are expected to continue their education until they receive a standard diploma in this country, as well as 15 year old boys. The majority of adolescents don't even complete their education by the time they turn 18, but are expected to continue their education or enter into an apprenticeship/military service when they become of age. Marriage isn't just considered a legal contract that combines assets, but is an established relationship between two adults who generally have the maturity to weather past the hormonal highs of "first-love" feelings, and to come together as partners to solve financial issues, parenting issues, housing issues, and effectively communicate.
When it was common for adolescents to marry, it was expected for adolescents at these ages to have children, run a farm, or work in industry (at least in the 20th century). Since then we've passed Child Labor Laws that prohibit these kinds of expectations, and now we have adolescents who continue their education as a whole demographic, and not as a privileged few.
We've all known or heard about grandmothers or great-grandmothers who married at 13 or so and started having kids at 14. Those remarkable women would also talk about abusive husbands who squandered money, chase them around the house with an axe trying to kill them, or refuse to seek medical treatment for their own children. These generations who grew up on tobacco farms would talk about at 6 years old walking out to the fields barefoot carrying containers full of liquid poison to apply to fields for the purpose of controlling pest infestation and to keep their cash crops growing adequately.
Things change, and even though we can debate forever and a day what should be expected from children and teenagers, in this culture 12 year old girls are not dropping out of school to get married and to start a family.
Finally, brain development research shows that the prefrontal cortex doesn't fully mature and grow until the mid-20s on average (which certainly explains a lot of adolescent behavior
). Because so much more is expected of a couple in modern marriage, it stands to reason that 12-15 year olds are nowhere near to being ready to marry.