The Hindu : Do not marry her off

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 30, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Do not marry her off

CHILD MARRIAGE IS a shocking reality in an India which purports to call itself a modern, progressive nation. Every year, perhaps every day, children are marched to a "mandap" and forced into a relationship they have only the faintest of ideas about and are the least ready for. In Rajasthan, for instance, even infants — sometimes in the arms of their mothers — are wedded. The other day, 3,000 very young girls and boys tied the knot in Chhattisgarh in a tradition that is old and in a ritual that has become an annual atrocity. Obviously, the custom or practice is cruel. To push two physiologically and emotionally ill-prepared individuals into matrimony is a compassionless way of looking at relationships. Marriage even at the best of times and between the most compatible is fraught with obstacles: one reason for this is the complexity of man-woman intimacy in which each has a set of expectations different from that of the other.

Encouraging, if one may use this word, this societal trend is the Act which restrains child marriage. This law does not talk about the status of the union; it does not actually annul it. Instead, it seeks to punish those guilty of promoting it. An argument against abrogating such a tie between two underaged individuals is that thousands of such "contracts" may then become meaningless. In India, many still get wedded before the recommended age of 18 for women and 21 for men, and Hindus are under no compulsion to have the union registered. Muslims and Christians usually do have documentary evidence to support wedlock, and although temples now record marriages, hundreds of Hindu couples formalise the bond elsewhere, even at homes, without a piece of paper. Marriage, per se, may not harm a little girl, but the brunt of motherhood undoubtedly tells upon her health. In Chhattisgarh, it is reported that women hardly ever cross 40. And, the emotional scar that child-rearing leaves on a child-mother could be painful.

Admittedly, there are no easy solutions for a malaise that has crept into Indian communities. But it would be prudent to examine the causes that force parents or other relatives of a little one to marry her off. Historically, a girl has been seen as a liability, and the sooner it is shifted to the shoulders of another man, the better it could be for her father. Education and empowerment of women have been suggested as remedies, but in a largely male dominated country like India, the fairer (and biologically stronger) sex finds terrible impediments on the road to a freer existence. It is a fact that many more boys are educated in schools and colleges than are girls. What is, however, more regrettable than this is the tendency to undervalue, even negate, a woman's role. Her onerous duties — which include looking after her siblings, her children and the aged — are given little importance, with the result that her very worth outside the four walls of her house tends to be questioned. Equality among the sexes is an imperative need, but this calls for radical thinking and approach, and "real" education can help fight beliefs that prop up an institution like child marriage. But, for starters, the Government can think of making it mandatory for every wedding to be registered. Some States have already shown the way here. Maybe, a post-office — which is normally found even in remote regions and the postmaster or the postmen who know most people in their jurisdiction — can act as a centre for recording marriages, a process that might just about scare away those seeking to palm off their babies.

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