15. Article 12: The right to marry and to found a family

This chapter discusses Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to marry and to found a family, subject to a wide power on the part of states to regulate the exercise of the right. National law may regulate the form and capacity to marry, but procedural or substantive limitations must not remove the essence of the right. The right to marry does not extend to same-sex marriage and there is no right to divorce. However, transsexuals are guaranteed the right to marry persons of their now opposite sex.