Do we need younger bride-grooms?
by Saumya Ancheri
Eighteen-year-old males may have a new choice available to them if the Law Commission has its way. Along with debating their favourite rock band, choosing their Prime Minister, deciding on whether they want to join the corporate world or continue their education, these youths can entertain a new possibility: marriage. The Law Commission headed by A. R. Lakshmananan submitted two reports to Union Law Minister H. R. Bhardwaj last Wednesday. The reports recommended that the legal age for men to marry should be 18, while marriages among children between the ages of 16 and 18 should be declared ‘voidable’, which means they can be annulled with mutual agreement between both the parties on attaining adulthood.
Member of the Commission Kirti Uppal, said, 'There is no rational, scientific basis to why boys who may vote or take other decisions after 18, must wait to be 21 to marry." While the Law itself is undecided about the abilities of young adults, deeming them old enough to drive and vote at 18, but able carry a drink only at the age of 21, lowering the marriageable age of boys is a step that demands extreme caution.
Today’s 18-year-old is on the brink of serious career choices. With competitiveness at an all-time high, s/he usually has to continue with higher studies. If not, s/he will have to spend the major part of his/her energy and resources establishing his/her profession. He is in no situation, emotionally or financially to raise a family - even if he is an unskilled labourer working in the unorganised sector. If it is considered egalitarian for men and women to have the same marriageable age in an era where both sexes are breadwinners, it would be wiser to raise the marriageable age of women also to 21.
Enabling children to marry at 16 which they can later annul is a mockery of the institution of marriage, considered the backbone of society. Marriage is not a contract for a few years; it is universally recognised as a responsibility for life. Considering the case where 18-year-old girls elope with under-age men only to be separated because of the law later, why not declare marriages between the ages of 18 and 21 a special case that can be arbitrated in court?
Given that one of the nation’s major concerns is the quantity of its population what are the law-makers hoping to achieve by encouraging younger parenthood? Early marriage almost always leads to early-child-bearing which results in both increased fertility rates as well as weaker children and mothers. According to child health professor Ramesh Adhikari, teenage girls who delay marriage and childbearing avoid putting themselves and their babies at risk of nutritional deprivation, and benefit from completing their own growth first.
It is also doubtful how many will gain from allowing 18-year-old males to marry, given that at the most, there will be a few couples who are both 18 years of age, as the norm is for the groom to be a few years older than the bride. As life expectancy and divorce-rates increase for human beings, one wonders why the Law Commission is hurrying youth into holy matrimony.
email: saumya.ancheri@gmail.com
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