The Prohobition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill 2021 – A double-edged Sword?

Navya Dubey is presently associated with the Institute of Law, Nirma University. Her area of interest is Intellectual Property laws and Human rights. Aditi Insaa is presently associated with the Institute of Law, Nirma University. Her area of interest is Intellectual Property laws and International Laws. Apart from this, she engages herself in reading current affairs and key issues affecting society.

Summary

The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021 created a huge stir among the legal stakeholders and various experts. This article pursues to examine the deliberations, debates and flipside and majorly the shortfalls of the proposed amendment. What are the key issues involved and how the act blots the agency of women are the things to be deeply cerebrated?

Keywords: Agency, Rights, Marriage, Child Marriage, Bill

Introduction

2021 witnessed the presentation of the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, which increased the marriageable age of women from 18 to 21 years. It was done as per the recommendations of Task Force report headed by Ms. Jaya Jaitly, former President of the Samata Party, so appointed by the Ministry of Child & Women Development. The bill containing six segments was presented in the Lok Sabha by Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani. It additionally proposed to correct seven individual laws — the Indian Christian Marriage Act; the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act; the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act; the Special Marriage Act; the Hindu Marriage Act; and the Foreign Marriage Act. The bill indeed tries to paint a rosy picture under the garb of women empowerment and gender equality. 

The avowed objective of the bill is to make the age of marriage even across all religions, regardless of contrary laws, customs, or ingrained practices. This article aims to put forth the claim that the proposed amendment will translate into gender equality when other factors like patriarchal mindset, early child marriage across religious communities are addressed.

Object and Reasons of the Bill

The object and reasons of the bill underscore that it seeks to “address the issues of women in a comprehensive way, as an action for bolstering the position of women. The bill prima facie seeks to increase the agency of women “as stated by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. However, the moot question which looms here is whether increasing the marriageable age will stop the underage marriages happening across the country. Many scholars, academicians like Zakia Soman (who fought the battle against Triple Talaq) have opined that these legal reforms alone are not sufficient enough to enable a just and safe environment for women. Experts have opposed the decision on the ground that the law to end child marriage won’t materialize as the decline in number of child marriages is marginal. Furthermore, they pointed out that cases of girls dropping out of school owing to early marriage reveal that many girls are often devoid of primary education.

 Notwithstanding, pundits have since brought up a large number of hidden issues — social disgrace, poverty, raised demand for dowries – that pushes ladies into an early marriage. They have likewise said that the law up to this point has not been sufficiently effective in forestalling child marriages. Consequently, there may be a possibility that this may very well be a handy solution for a complex issue that requires a more granular perspective, beginning from changes in the mindset and notions of the general public and society.

Specialists have additionally highlighted that in a nation where inter-caste and inter-religious marriages could be proven fatal, this law could become a tool that can be used by daughters to claim their rights. Regardless of the advantages the bill seeks to offer on the platter, it remains unclear whether this new lawful period of marriage will bring about the sea changes as stated or whether 21 would end up being simply a number.

Paradox

A major downside of increasing the age of marriage of women from 18 to 21 years is that it downplays the decision-making capabilities of marriage of both women and men. Back in 2008, The Law Commission Report which was published proffered a suggestion of reducing the marriageable age of men to 18 years assuming this step would further the parity between the legal marriageable ages of women and men.

An individual is considered to be an adult after attaining 18 years of age. This essentially means she is legally capable of buying property, voting and entering into contracts. The looming question here is why is this freedom curtailed with regards to deciding the age of marriage. Doesn’t the fact that a woman is exercising her own will to vote rationally suffice to conclude that she has attained the wisdom to rationally decide when she wants to get married?

Tarnishing the Agency of Women

We live in a society that is to date grappling with issues of child marriages and female foeticide. A daughter is treated as a parayadhan and a liability that needs to be handed over as soon as possible. People still have deeply- rooted beliefs that defy the agency and empowerment of women. India is already riddled with gender inequalities. The primary and the most fundamental thing which is required to eliminate these evils involve cultivating a value system that thrives on mutual respect between men and women. Recognition of women is sine qua non to create this value system.

Freedom of Choice which is available to women as a right gets truncated and reduced under the societal mores and pressures. For instance, choosing a partner becomes a task for young adults because the choice is enmeshed with barriers of caste, creed, religion, language, etc. These restrictions foisted upon the individuals are so stringent that violation of the same often leads to the murder of their daughter by families (Honor Killing) under the garb of protecting the caste. Instead of recognizing the rights of women and protecting the agency of women where she is able to choose a life partner, State Governments are riding on love-jihad laws, leaving no room for inter- religion marriages.

Families often abuse these laws to validate their social perceptions by simply annulling inter- religion or inter- caste marriages. The laws so abused include seeking repeal under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, making false charges of kidnapping and rape under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and IPC. The present bill also stands chances of being subjected to similar patterns of misuse and abuse by parents disapproving of their daughter’s choice of partner.

Conclusion

Age of 18 is considered to be a maximum breaking point as far as the physical and reproductive development of ladies is concerned. Hence, the proposed move will limit and constraint the privileges of grown-up ladies, an issue that needs to be reconsidered by concerned stakeholders.  Statistics reveal that India breeds every third child bride in the world and the proposed step which increases the marriageable age give a cue that around 34% of women would get married before attaining the marriageable age. Therefore, there are slim chances that raising the bar of marriageable age would result in sea changes in our society.

The bill seems more like a posturing attempt of pleasing and tokenism rather than a genuine step to eliminate issues of gender inequality, child marriages, maternal mortality, safety of women, etc. The stakeholders and the Government should proactively implement schemes to alleviate the situation. Ensuring easy access to education will go a long way to address the social evils that are deeply entrenched in our society.