Our union minister for women and child development, Mrs Smriti Irani, has introduced a bill in Lok Sabha that seeks to raise women’s marriage age to 21 from 18 and amend the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. The decision was taken at the suggestion of the task force committee headed by Jaya Jaitly, established in 2020.
This move is for the benefit of women so that they have more opportunities to educate themselves. Many women have to leave their studies mid-way to get married due to family pressure. Many of them want to work but can’t because they are married at a very young age and their in-laws don’t allow them to work.
Other reasons were given by the government for raising the age of marriage for women. These reasons include gender neutrality, early pregnancies, improving nutrition for mothers and their children, and lowering the maternal mortality rate.
Yet, the questions here arise: Do we need age modification to eradicate child marriage and empower women? Is this action necessary? Despite reforming laws against child marriage, we should first look at the reasons why it still occurs. Making changes is good, but we should ask why are we making those changes? Is it the reason we are unable to succeed in our mission?
Why Do People Marry Their Daughters Early?
There are several reasons why people marry their daughters at an early age, including poverty, lack of education, social thinking (when a girl is born, people consider her a paraya dhan), to reduce their economic burden, dowry problems (a younger bride means less dowry) and loss of virginity concerns (the experience is humiliating for an unmarried woman) to secure and protect them.
These are some reasons why child marriages take place. Does raising the age overcome these factors, can poverty be eradicated by this approach, can people stop paying dowry, can people give their daughters freedom while thinking they are safe outside?
In a community that is interconnected, there is no single solution to this huge problem. Amending the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 is not the only step we should take to reduce child marriage. It’s been 75 years of independence and we still suffer from the child marriage issue.
The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929, also known as the Sarda Act, addressed the age of marriage for the first time, which fixed the age for girls at 12 years and 14 years for boys and later it was amended in 1978 and the marriageable age became 15 for girls and 18 for boys. After 2006 it became 18 for girls and 21 for boys.
Now, the new bill proposes raising it to 21 for all communities. Despite there being a law prohibiting marriage below the age of 18 since the 1900s, child marriages remained virtually undeterred until 2005. Nearly half of all women aged 20–24 married before reaching the legal marriage age.
NFHS4 and NFHS5 reported a significant decline in this proportion by 2015–16, decreasing to 27% and 23% respectively by 2019–20. Those changes are mainly attributed to social changes like increased access to education and expanding aspirations.
Considering we are not capable of enforcing a law restricting marriage before the age of 18, how can we easily enforce a law that would affect the vast majority of Indians? For women to delay marriage, we need to focus on positive and enabling measures to improve their quality of life—education, training, employment and poverty alleviation.
These things are much more likely to deter women from marrying; therefore, the government should place a greater emphasis on them.