With this decision, the government will put the age of marriage for men and women on an equal footing. The proposal was also welcomed by hundreds of young girls who campaigned in the northern Indian state of Haryana to raise the age of marriage for women. In June 2020, the Ministry of Women and Child Development set up a team led by Jaya Jaitley to study the relationship between the timing of marriage and issues of women`s nutrition, infant mortality rate (IMR), maternal mortality rate (MMR) and other issues. The result proposed raising the age of marriage to 21. Child and women`s rights activists, as well as experts in demographic and family planning, have not advocated raising the age of marriage for women, as such legislation would lead a large part of the population to illegal marriages. Child marriage was banned by Indian law in 1929. However, in British colonial times, the minimum legal age for marriage was set at 14 for girls and 18 for boys. Amid protests from Muslim organizations in undivided British India, a personal Sharia was passed in 1937 that allowed child marriage with the consent of a girl`s guardian. [6] After India`s independence in 1947, the law underwent two revisions.
The minimum legal age of marriage was raised to 15 for girls in 1949, 18 for women and 21 for men in 1978. [7] Laws preventing child marriage have been challenged in Indian courts,[6] with some Indian Muslim organizations not seeking a minimum age and leaving the issue of age to their personal rights. [8] [9] Child marriage is an active political issue and is the subject of ongoing cases before India`s highest courts. [8] The Non-Muslim Act of 1929 was amended twice after India`s independence in 1947. In 1949, the minimum age for girls was raised to 15 years and in 1978, the minimum age for both sexes to 18 years and for men to 21 years. [7] [12] The applicability and admissibility of child marriage among Muslims under the 1937 Act, under the Indian Constitution passed in 1950, remains a controversial issue, with a number of Supreme Court cases and decisions. [6] They point out that although marriages are currently illegal for girls under the age of 18, child marriage in the country remains a major challenge – up to a quarter of women aged 20 to 24 married before the age of 18, according to the National Family Health Survey, 2019-21. 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 among 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 in childbirth.
[43] [44] Currently, the bill to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 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. “You shouldn`t fix a problem immediately through a law. You need to understand the central social problem. Girls must have equal opportunities in health, education and life. Including more women in the workforce, such as South Korea and Japan, can also help improve gender imbalances and address issues related to early marriage,” says Vinoj Manning. However, she is not alone, in India, thousands of people are forced to marry early. Sometimes violently, against their will, apparently to ward off bad influences or not to miss the opportunity to get a “perfect” match.
Another consideration is gender parity. Article 4 (c) of the Special Marriage Act explains the legally permissible age of marriage for women to be 18, while for men the age is 21, but the distinction does not seem to have a reasonable justification. The voting age is the same, the age to intentionally accept and enter into a contract is the same, and given this, the age to enter into a lifetime commitment should not be different. In the landmark Independent Thought v Union Of India, the Supreme Court ruled that it is imperative that the age of marriage for men and women be fair. Muslim organizations in India have long argued[9][33] that Indian laws passed by parliament, such as the Child Marriage Act 2006, do not apply to Muslims because marriage is a personal legal entity. [6] [8] The Delhi Supreme Court and other state courts of India disagree. The Delhi court, for example, ruled that the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 takes precedence over all personal laws and governs every citizen of India.[34] The decision states that a minor marriage in which the man or woman is over 16 years of age would not be a void but questionable marriage that would become valid, if no action is taken by a court that has the possibility of ordering otherwise. In the event that one of the parties is under 18 years of age, the marriage is invalid, since the age of consent in India is 18 years, sexual relations with minors under 18 years of age are a legal crime under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code. [34] The bill would mean a major change for women in a country where, according to several estimates, about 50% marry before the age of 21. Apni Beti, Apna Dhan (ABAD), which translates to “My Daughter, My Wealth, is one of India`s first conditional money transfer programs dedicated to delaying youth marriages across the country. In 1994, the Government of India implemented this programme in the state of Haryana. When a mother`s first, second or third child is born, they receive ₹500 or US$11 in the first 15 days to meet their postpartum needs.
In addition, the government gives ₹2,500, or ₹35, to invest in a long-term savings bond in the name of the subsidiary, which can then be bought back for ₹350 or ₹350 after its 18th birthday. She can only receive the money if she is not married. Anju Malhotra, an expert on child and adolescent marriage, said of the programme: “No other conditional money transfer is intended to delay marriage. It is an incentive to encourage parents to value their daughters. [10] Marriages in India receive a great deal of care and consideration; Yet 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 minimum legal age for marriage was 21 until 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 were married on average between the ages of 10 and 12. 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 to marry from 18 to 21. Asked about the justification for the new law, the Indian government said it would empower women and minimize gender gaps. This article aims to analyse the economic and social aspects of this provision in the context of the current debate on the proposed amendment. According to india`s 2011 national census, the average age of marriage for women is 21.2 years. [25] [26] In the 15-19 age group, 69.6% of all women surveyed in India had never been married. [27] The Cabinet of the Union approved a proposal to raise the minimum age of marriage for women from 18 to 21. A look at the legal implications: Irani said 23 percent of girls under the age of 18 were married despite a law prohibiting it. Around 2 million cases of child marriage were interrupted during the 2015-2020 period, she said. Figures from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) show that 7% of women aged 15 to 18 were pregnant.
However, she agreed that each branch of society, such as government, political parties or civil society, should strive to make a higher age for girls` marriage acceptable to communities. “Just by changing the law, you are not changing society or the institution of marriage, which is a social institution accompanied by cultural practices.” The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is an international law that aims to end discrimination against women. Article 16, Marriage and family life, stipulates that all women and men have the right to choose their spouse, to have the same responsibilities and to decide on the number of children and the distance between them. This Convention stipulates that child marriages must have no legal effect, that all measures must be taken to enforce a minimum age and that all marriages must be registered in an official register. [38] India signed the Convention on July 30, 1980, but stated that it was not practical to have marriage registration because of the size and population of the country. [39] The law prescribes a minimum age for marriage to essentially prohibit child marriage and prevent abuse of minors. So why did the Modi government act to raise the legal age of marriage for women? The government says the goal is to provide women with equal opportunities by giving them more time to complete their education, access employment opportunities, reach psychological maturity before marriage, and ensure gender parity.