Marriage Age Different For Men And Women – Free PDF Download

Context

• The Delhi High Court took up a plea that sought a uniform age of marriage for men and women.
• The bench issued a notice to the Centre and the Law Commission of India.

 Indian Majority Act, 1875

• Minimum age of marriage is 21 and 18 years for men and women, respectively.
• An individual attains the age of majority at 18 as per the Indian Majority Act, 1875.

Minimum age

• outlaw child marriages
• Personal laws of various religions
• For Hindus, Section 5(iii) of 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.
• Child marriages are not illegal but can be declared void
• In Islam, the marriage of a minor who has attained puberty is considered valid under personal law.

Evolution

• The Indian Penal Code enacted in 1860 criminalised any physical intercourse with a girl below the age of 10.
• The provision of rape was amended in 1927
• The law had faced opposition from conservative leaders
• In 1929, the Child Marriage Restraint Act set 16 and 18 years
• The law, popularly known as Sarda Act after its sponsor Harbilas Sarda, was eventually amended in 1978 to prescribe 18 and 21 years as the age of marriage for a woman and a man, respectively.

Why challenged in court?

• The petitioner in the Delhi HC case, has challenged the law on the grounds of discrimination.
• He alleges that Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, which guarantee the right to equality and the right to live with dignity, are violated by having different legal age for men and women to marry.

 The debate

• The different legal standard for the age of men and women to marry has been a subject of debate.
• The laws are a codification of custom and religious practices that are rooted in patriarchy.
• Women (CEDAW), also calls for the abolition of laws that assume women have a different physical or intellectual rate of growth than men.
• The Law Commission paper recommended that the minimum age of marriage for both genders be set at 18.

Marriage- the latent liability for women

• The discourse on economic development has become increasingly gendered, in recognition of both the ethical construct of equality between men and women and the realization that women’s empowerment generates positive externalities.
• The biggest constraint
• Few facts underlining this phenomenon
• Marriage and Childcare- the only barrier

 Way forward

• There is no silver bullet that works best in empowering women economically in our country.
• But the heart of the matter is that to get more women to work, we have to get them out of their homes.
• With patriarchal norms underlying the traditional role of men and women in households and non-marketization of childcare, coupled with a shift towards nuclear families, the burden of domestic work lies on women.

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