However, she agrees that every branch of society, such as government, political parties or civil society, must work to make an older age for girls` marriage acceptable to communities. “It is not by changing the law that you change society or the institution of marriage, which is a social institution accompanied by cultural practices.” On a hot August afternoon, 16-year-old Punam Mitharwal took a routine university test and went to the nearest post office in his northern Indian town of Hisar to send a special letter. It was a short letter in Hindi on a postcard to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She accompanied half a dozen of her friends, each with a similar letter. They all contained a specific demand, namely the raising of the legal age of marriage for girls to 21. Much care and consideration is given to weddings in India; Nevertheless, society and its rigid rules have prevented people, especially women, from making their own decisions about their lives and the age at which they want to marry. In Victorian times, the legal age of marriage was 21 to 1823. After 1823, however, it was reduced to 14 for boys and 12 for girls. There were many social ills in colonial India and one of them was child marriage. Meanwhile, girls between the ages of 10 and 12 were married on average.
After independence, India underwent a major change in 1978 when the legal age of marriage was raised to 18 for girls and 21 for boys. Recently, a bill was introduced by the Indian government to raise the legal age for women from 18 to 21. Asked about the rationale behind the new law, the Indian government said it would empower women and minimize gender inequalities. The purpose of this article is to analyse the economic and social aspects of this provision in the context of the current debate on the proposed amendment. Several activists have expressed skepticism about the decline in cases of child marriage in India. [28] They believe that “the UNICEF report may not reflect the reality on the ground and the numbers are unlikely to be as low as they appear in the report.” [28] They say data on child marriage is collected by local authorities, not UNICEF. In India, the government asks for the age of married couples as part of census data collected annually. However, as people know that child marriage is illegal in India, they are less likely to tell the authorities that they have broken the law. [28] Dhuwarakha Sriram, Child Protection Specialist with UNICEF India, says that “everyone knows that there is too little coverage in India – even UNICEF is aware of this.” According to Sriram, people in India are aware of the age of illegal marriage, so they are less likely to tell the truth, which leads to under-reporting. [28] Currently, the bill raising the legal age of marriage for women between the ages of 18 and 21 has been referred to the Standing Committee of Parliament.
However, the country still has a long way to go before Indian women manage to be on an equal footing with men, regardless of caste, creed, religion and socio-economic status. John therefore believes that the government would be better off avoiding the issue of legal age and instead fighting to end the practice of dowry, which encourages early marriage. The younger the bride, the lower the dowry that her parents have to pay to the groom`s side. John says the government should also push for better education standards and connections to help graduates find jobs. The most important advantage is that this step is a step towards gender equality as it makes the legal age of marriage equal for men and women, which is in line with the right to equal treatment under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. In 2018, India`s Law Commission proposed lowering the legal age for men from 21 to 18 and recommended leaving the legal age for both sexes to marry at 18. According to 2019 government data, the average age of marriage for women is 22.1. This number has gradually increased over the years, showing that the change is voluntary.
Much of the change has occurred as women`s education rates have improved. But there have been judicial interventions that have frowned upon interfaith marriages, and the BJP governments of the U.P. and Haryana have proposed measures to prevent what they call the “jihad of love.” Increased surveillance of privacy by the state and vigilante groups is a reality. “When the legal age reaches 21, is it reprimanded if a person in a sexual relationship between 18 and 20 is reprimanded or if the age of majority also increases to 21 for girls,” Tuteja asked. The importance that Indian society attaches to this institution has paved the way for various questions about its legality in the context of law. A question such as “What should be the legal age of marriage for women in India?” has often provoked different opinions from major interest groups in society. So why did the Modi government act to raise the legal age of marriage for women? Girls who marry earlier in life are less likely to be informed about reproductive problems,[40] and for this reason, pregnancy-related deaths are known to be the leading cause of death for married girls aged 15 to 19. [41] These girls are twice as likely to die at birth as girls aged 20 to 24. [42] Girls under the age of 15 are 5 times more likely to die at birth. [43] [44] “We need to explain to parents that a girl is not a burden. It can also make them proud, find a job and take care of them,” says Mitharwal.
“She can do anything a boy can do.” Small sample surveys have different methods for estimating total child marriage in India, some using multi-year baseline data. For example, the NFHS-3 and NFHS-4 data for 2005, mentioned in the table above, used a survey of women aged 20 to 24 asking if they were married before the age of 18. [18] The NFHS-3 also interviewed women up to the age of 49 and asked the same question. The survey found that many more women aged 40 to 49 were married before the age of 18 than women aged 20 to 24 surveyed. In the 1970s, the legal age for women in India was 15. [12] “The law is being used as a weapon to serve honor, caste and communal controls against young couples without ending underage marriages,” the report said. “The outcome of the law will leave girls speechless longer in personal decisions, with legal support.” More recently, Cabinet has proposed raising the legal age of marriage in India for women from 18 to 21, supported by the Child Marriage Restraints Act and the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and the Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006.