The Promise of Deliverance

Despite intentions, raising the age of marriage among women is a decidedly dubious solution to the social ills it seeks to cure

- Mary E. John

The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill 2021 as announced by the Government of India last December, seeks to raise the minimum age at marriage for women to 21 years from its previous level of 18 years. The text of the proposed Bill also states that the definition of a child will be amended to mean anyone who has not yet completed 21 years of age.

The objects and reasons of the Bill tell us a great deal about the many disproportionate expectations that the government is placing on this move. The list is a long one: women’s physical, mental and reproductive health, access to higher education and skill training, greater employment opportunities and increases in India’s work participation rates for women, improvements in maternal mortality, sex ratio at birth, adequate nutrition for mother and child. The idea is that equality, as enshrined in the constitution, will be realized through parity in the age of marriage among men and women.