India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi on Dec, 6.SPUTNIK/Reuters
The Indian government has introduced a bill to raise the age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, bringing it on par with the age for men.
The government is concerned about the health of its “daughters and sisters,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this week, adding that the measure is designed to empower women, allow them to further their educations, and was based on a 10-member task force’s recommendation that examined the link between the age of marriage and the impact of early motherhood on maternal and infant mortality and nutrition.
But the move has been met with heavy criticism from multiple quarters. Opposition parties said the proposed legislation was written in “haste,” without adequate consultations, and is an attack on the laws of religious communities. Women’s organizations and gender and legal experts said it goes against the international norm of 18 as the minimum marriage age and takes away sexual and marital freedom of choice for people who are otherwise legally adults.
The government doesn’t see it that way. On Tuesday, Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani introduced the bill in the lower house of Parliament, calling it a “secular” and “decisive” step that would boost equality for “all religions, castes and creeds, overriding any custom or any law which seeks to discriminate against women.” Citing the latest National Family Health Survey data, which found that 23 per cent of women aged 20-24 were married before they turned 18, she said, “We are 75 years late in providing equal rights to men and women to enter into matrimony … For the first time, through this bill, men and women, keeping in mind the right to equality, can decide on their marriage.”
After a furor over the bill in Parliament this week, where it was deemed “politically motivated” by protesting politicians, it was dispatched to a parliamentary committee for review.
Critics say it will only increase the incidence of early marriage, not reduce it, simply by rendering previously legal marriages illegal.
“Increasing the age of marriage for women will increase the number of underage marriages exponentially and expose many more young adults to criminal charges,” said Mumbai-based women’s-rights lawyer Flavia Agnes. “Nobody is saying that girls should marry at 18 years. What we are saying is that a law is not required for that. Socioeconomic conditions need to improve – just like they have for the middle and upper classes, where the average age women are marrying at has increased with the rise in education and career prospects. If similar facilities are provided to the low-income population, they will begin to delay marriages too.”
Another fear is that the law will be misused to penalize people who may not even know it has changed. “It will also strengthen patriarchy. Young women under 21 years in relationships with partners not to their family’s liking are likely to be criminalized under this law,” Ms. Agnes added.
A memorandum to the government by a group of women’s organizations stated that, in building a legal framework for women’s empowerment, marriage or age of marriage “should not be its primary focus. This narrows the scope of change dramatically – making it about the act of marriage and not the disabling circumstances that early marriage is a symptom of.”
Furthermore, according to public-health experts, the health parameters of women are not likely to get better unless nutrition is improved and poverty levels decline substantially, and changing the age of marriage by a few years will have little impact.
The National Coalition Advocating for Adolescent Concerns, a group of 21 organizations across India, noted that increasing the age of marriage without addressing the root causes of early marriage will aggravate the vulnerability of young people and impede access to sexual and reproductive health care and maternity benefits.
Another concern is that raising the minimum marriageable age for women in a country with high poverty levels and a preference for male children will increase the prevalence of female infanticide and sex-selective abortion, as girls will be seen as an even greater burden.
“Changing the law will not improve anything, but make things worse,” said Reeta Kaushik, the secretary of Samudaik Kalyan Evam Vikash Sansthan, an organization in the state of Uttar Pradesh that works to improve access to formal education for marginalized Dalit girls. “As it is, it is difficult to abide by the current legal age of 18 years for large sections of the poor. It is simply not followed, and child marriages have increased manifold during the pandemic.
“Those who want to marry off their girls earlier than the legal age will do so even if the minimum age of marriage is increased. The crux of the problem of child marriage lies in the fact that education is not free after Grade 8, which is why most girls drop out of school at 13 to 14 years and are married off because parents don’t know what to do with them. Education must be made free for all till at least Grade 12.”
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