Law With Respect to new Legal Age for marriage

Uniform marriage age

Why in News

Recently, the Supreme Court (SC) decided to examine a plea to transfer to itself cases

pending in the Delhi and Rajasthan High Courts to declare a “uniform minimum age” for

marriage.

● The Union government has also set up a committee to reconsider the

minimum age of marriage for women, which is currently 18.

Key Points

● About:

○ A Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) issued notice to the

government on a plea, which was filed to “secure gender justice,

gender equality, and dignity of women”.

■ The plea sought a direction to the Union government

to remove the anomalies in the minimum age of

marriage and make it ‘gender-neutral,

religion-neutral and uniform for all citizens’.

■ Various laws state that the minimum age

to get married should be 18 for women

and 21 for men.

○ the SC has power under Article 139A to transfer to itself, cases

involving the same or substantially the same questions of law

pending before two or more high courts.

■ It has been argued that the different ages for marriage

violated the fundamental rights of equality (Article

14), protection against discrimination (Article 15),

and dignity of life (Article 21) of citizens and went

against India’s commitment under the convention on

elimination of all forms of discrimination against

women (CEDAW).

● Current Laws Related to Marriage in India:

○ For Hindus, The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, sets 18 years as the

minimum age of marriage for the bride and 21 years as the

minimum age for the groom.

■ However, child marriages are not illegal even

though they can be declared void at the request of

the minor in the marriage.

○ 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.

● Pros of Increasing Marriageable Age for Girls and Making it Uniform:

○ Socio-economic Fronts: Increasing the legal age for the marriage

of women has enormous benefits on social and economic fronts

including:

■ Lowering the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR).

■ Improvement of nutrition levels.

■ On the financial front, opportunities will be

opened up for women to pursue higher education and

careers and become financially empowered, thus

resulting in a more egalitarian society.

○ More female labor force participation: Increasing the marriage

age will push the mean marriage age higher and will lead to more

females doing graduation and hence improving the female labor

force participation ratio.

■ The percentage of females doing graduation will

increase by at least 5-7 percentage points from the

current level of 9.8%.

○ The benefit for both: Both men and women will gain

economically and socially by marrying when they are more than

the legal age, but added that the urge of the women is much higher

as they always get a higher payoff by becoming financially

empowered to take decisions.

● Cons of Increasing Marriageable Age for Girls and Making it Uniform:

○ Minimum is not mandatory: Minimum age of marriage does not

mean mandatory age.

■ It only signifies that below that age there could be

criminal prosecution under the child marriage law.

○ Rights of the girls are threatened: Increasing the age of marriage

to 21 years would mean that girls will have no say in their

personal matters until they are 21.

■ The elementary right that the Convention of the Right

of Children of the United Nation bestows upon

minors — the right to be heard, the right for their

views to be considered — will be denied to girls right

up till 21, beyond adulthood.

○ Exploitation of law by parents: The child marriage law has been

used by parents against eloping daughters. It has become a tool

for parental control and for punishment of boys or men whom

girls choose as their husbands.

■ Most cases that are taken to court are self-arranged

marriages.

■ And only one-third of the cases relate to arranged

marriages, which are sometimes brought by parents or

husbands to dissolve or to nullify marriages that have

broken down because of domestic violence, dowry or

compatibility issues.

○ Social validity of marriages: Even if the law declares a marriage

before the specified age as void, in the eyes of the community,

arranged marriages will have social validity.

■ This worsens the condition of the girls who are

widowed even before reaching the new legal age for

marriage.

○ Increased female infanticide: Moreover, raising the female

marriage age in the countries that have high son preference and

high poverty may have the unintended consequence of increasing

the prevalence of female infanticide and sex-selective abortion.

Way forward

● Altering the thinking:

○ Any ground-level change will only happen when the psyche of

people will alter. No law is effective if change does not occur

from within.

● Erasing the stereotype:

○ Increasing the legal age for marriage is a must, even legally as it

should get us out of the stereotype mindset that women are

more mature than men of the same age and therefore can be

allowed to marry sooner.