The Central Cabinet on 15th December took the decision to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, which is also the legal age for men to get married. In India , the law prescribes a minimum age of marriage to essentially outlaw child marriages and prevent abuse of minors. Personal laws of various religions that deal with marriage have their own standards, often reflecting custom.
For Hindus, The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 sets 18 years as the minimum age for the bride and 21 years as the minimum age for the groom. In Islam, the marriage of a minor who has attained puberty is considered valid.
The Special Marriage Act, 1954 and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 also prescribe 18 and 21 years as the minimum age of consent for marriage for women and men, respectively. For the new age of marriage to be implemented, these laws are expected to be amended.
In June 2020, Ministry for Women and Child Development set up a task force to look into the correlation between the age of a marriage with issues of women’s nutrition, the prevalence of anemia, and other social indices. This task force/committee was headed Jaya Jaitly. The committee has recommended the age of women’s marriage to increase to 21 years, after going through various social factors.
Child and women’s rights activists, as well as population and family planning experts, have not been in favour of increasing the age of marriage for women on the basis that such legislation would push a large portion of the population into illegal marriages.
They have contended that even with the legal age of marriage for women being kept at 18 years, child marriages continue in India and a decrease in such marriages has not been because of the existing law but because of an increase in girls ‘education and employment opportunities.
They have said the law would end up being coercive, and in particular negatively impact marginalised communities, such as the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes, making them law-breakers.
The proposed new bill, The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, proposes to amend the PCMA in order to make the age of marriage equal for both males and females at 21 years..
“There will be consequential amendments in laws relating to the age of marriage i.e. ‘the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872’; ‘The Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936’; ‘The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937’; ‘The Special Marriage Act, 1954’; ‘The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955’; and ‘The Foreign Marriage Act, 1969’. Also the laws namely ‘The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956’; and ‘Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956’ pertain to this context.”
Personal laws of various religions pertaining to marriage had their own standards so far – for instance, while the Hindu Marriage Act fixed the marriageable age at 18 years for girls and 21 for men, the personal law for Muslims allowed the marriage of girls at 15 years of age. Courts in the past had said the PCMA Act, 2006, was secular in nature and would prevail upon the personal law.
As per the experts, with this new amendment, further opportunities will open up for women to pursue higher education and careers. This will definitely lower the Maternal Mortality Rate, Infant Mortality Rate, and improvement in nutrition levels as well as an increase Sex Ratio at birth. These are the main reasons for effecting the proposed legislation. It will also result in women attaining psychological maturity before marriage, exercising better reproductive rights, and better place in life skills, including family planning, use of contraceptives, etc.
To me, it looks like a step in the right direction. Naturally, there will be opposition from minority communities as they will say govt is interfering in their personal laws. The bill will be tabled in Parliament during this week, and as usual, you can expect hungama in both houses of Parliament. With govt having the majority in both houses, the bill is expected to be passed by Parliament, you may expect wide protest at many places after the passing of the bill, and as usual, this protest will be supported by various political parties in the opposition ranks.
Let us wait and watch for further development in this matter.
Waiting, for your views on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
20th December 2021
Tejinder Singh Sethi
Those who are not in power, would certainly oppose the Bill. Can these opposition parties rule Modern India with their sick mentality. Some Muslims leaders would certainly oppose the bill to get Muslims votes. But people needs to come out of stone age mentality and accept equal rights regardless of gender. There are many countries in the world still exists where people can still live in stone age. I would say go there, because for you there is no place in India.