Well yes but

Well, first of all I was explicitly trying to emphasize the similarities more than the differences. ;)

- But you don't sign anything to become a common law couple, and in many places common law couples have at least some of the rights of marriage. The point has been, actually, made by gays even before gay marriage got really going in the agenda. However, it is essentially illegal to become a common law couple with a minor.

- Point taken. In my pedoed viewpoint, it is evident that pedo means prepubescent. I know that it doesn't in public discourse, so that they might describe as pedophilic a liaison with a fertile minor.

- But they are no longer part of mainstream Western Christianity. True, the legal changes came before the religious turnaround, but today it is impossible to deny the opposition of mainstream Western Christians to child marriage. It is even used to criticize the ostensibly Christian (or at least Christian enough) Branch Davidians, CoG and FLDS and, in a quasi-racist way, Hindu and especially Muslim societies. In turn, the more or less agreement in the most mainstream religions leads to have it easier to exclude child marriage from the First (like it does things like the psychotropic drugs of Native American paganism or the animal blood of some Afro-Caribbean religions).