Early marriage or child marriage is one of the major practices through which the subjugation of women is done in a patriarchal society. Not only does it take away a girl’s right to choose their life partner, but it also leads to multiple challenges in her life. Some of these entail dropping out from school, early pregnancies, domestic abuse, and mental trauma due to abandonment by society in case the husband leaves them.
‘I was beaten brutally when I asked for my books’
Suneeta, the third child of Sadhula Ram (a landless farmer) and Madhuri was born in Bikaner’s Khinyera village and was just 13 years old when she was married off to a 30-year-old man in 2007, the same day her sister five years older than her was married.
“I don’t remember much about my Gauna(a northern Indian Hindu ceremony after which conjugal life begins as marriage is only considered as a ritual union), I only remember that I was happy to see new clothes and sweets for me, ” Suneeta, who is now 29 years old, recalls. “Although I have tried, I haven’t been able to erase what happened to me after I went to that man’s house,” she adds.
Suneeta wanted to study, so while marrying her, her father told her husband that he will send his daughter to him after she passes school. They promised Suneeta’s father that they would get her admitted to the school in their village.
Thirteen-year-old Suneeta carried books with her to the ‘new home’. They were put in a locker the day she reached there. Forget school, she wasn’t allowed to even step outside her house. After a month, she asked her husband about the books. He mercilessly beat her and torched the books in front of her.
Suneeta was rescued by her father who came to know about her ordeal through his elder daughter who was married in the same family.
Rajasthan and India have equal Child Marriage Rate
Suneeta’s marriage happened despite the existence of laws like The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 and the recent bill on its amendment proposing to increase the legal age from 18 to 21 that make child marriage an illegal offense. Yet, as ground reality shows, child marriage is rampant across the country adversely impacting lives of girls According to UNICEF data, India is the country with one-third of the total number of child brides in the world with over 220 million child brides. Although the rate of child marriage has declined in the last two decades, around 1.5 million women become a victim of child marriage every year in the country.
A chief factor behind the same is the combination of the low financial status of people and patriarchal societal norms.
In Rajasthan, it has taken the form of a custom making the state home to the largest number of child brides in the country. The national child marriage rate of the country is 23.3% which is equal to that of Rajasthan.
“I know many women who were married early but they don’t want to talk about it. Even I want to erase those memories from my mind” Suneeta says.
She recalls the story of Jyoti who was born in the same village and was slut shamed and socially boycotted by the village headmen. Just because the man with whom her marriage was fixed at the age of ten, disapproved of her at the time of Gauna labeling her of loose character. She was forced to vacate her house and now she lives on the outskirts of the village on her own facing various kinds of stigmas and harassment by villagers.
At 19 I was married again now I disgust the concept of Marriage
My parents were facing a lot of problems in the village because I was separated from my first husband and out of fear of societal abandonment they married me again in 2013. Tells Suneeta.
The consent of women is not something that is considered by the majority of the population in our country. During her second marriage, Suneeta was in the first year of her graduation and was preparing for the Rajasthan Police Constable examination.
I didn’t want to marry but I had no other option. Now I consider marriage as a trap and no woman should ever get married, Says Suneeta.
Within a year Suneeta was pregnant and in 2014 she gave birth to a girl. For the next five years, she kept facing multiple types of abuse by her husband and in-laws but never uttered a word to her parents because she knew that she would never be accepted by society and didn’t want to make things difficult for her parents.
In 2019 she got an opportunity and she ran away from her abusive husband to secure the future of her daughter after he told her that he doesn’t have money for the daughter’s education. Since then Suneeta has been living in the Bikaner district with her younger sister while her daughter lives with her parents. She is currently working as a Karuna Fellow at Kaivalya Education Foundation.
Women like Suneeta, Jyoti and others have been the victim to this deep rooted evil of child marriage. Such practices cause severe mental and physical issues and put barriers to women’s access to education, stopping a huge number of women from living a dignified life that has been guaranteed by the constitution of India.
*Names have been changed.