History of child marriage

Subject : History

Section :Modern history

Concept :

From Rig vedic period to modern times, child marriage is practised throughout the country with religious sanctions.
Hindu and Muslim Personal Laws do not explicitly prohibit child marriage.
Manusmritis:
It says that if the father fails to marry off his daughter within three years of her attaining puberty, she can find a spouse on her own.
Medhatithi, one of the oldest and earliest commentators on the Manusmriti, eight years is the right age for a girl to be given in marriage
The Rig Veda mentions garbhadhan — literally, attaining the wealth of the womb. It is the first of the 16 samskaras a Hindu is expected to perform.
The Greek traveller Megasthenes (350-290 BC) has written that he was told that the women of the Pandian kingdom in South India bear children at six years of age.
About seven centuries later, the Persian polymath, Al Biruni, wrote that child marriages were rampant in India.
The Muslim clergy too considered child marriages to be valid, though such children have the option to nullify their marriage.
The colonial state should be credited for reforming marriage laws. The Age of Consent Acts of 1861 and 1891 brought in reform in conjugal rights.

Age of consent 1861

The 1861 Act laid down 10 years as the minimum age for sexual intercourse.
The Hindu intelligentsia opposed raising this age to 12 on the grounds that it violated norms related to garbhadhan.

Age of consent act 1891

The Age of Consent Act, 1891 was a legislation enacted in British India on 19 March 1891 which raised the age of consent for sexual intercourse for all girls, married or unmarried, from ten to twelve years in all jurisdictions, its violation subject to criminal prosecution as rape.
Tilak’s newspapers Maratha and Kesari were at the forefront of this campaign, which was opposed to the age of consent act.

Background

The sufferings of two young girls Rukhmabai and PhulmoniDasi has led to this act.
Rukhmabai case
In 1884, Rukhmabai, a 20-year-old woman was taken to Bombay high court by her husband Bhikaji after she refused to live with him.
Having married him at the age of 11 years, never having consummated the marriage and having lived separately for nearly 8 years she refused to move back with him.
She was ordered by the court to live with her husband or face a six month imprisonment. She refused to comply and the rising costs of the trial forced Bhikaji withdrew the case in July 1888 upon a settlement of 2000 rupees.
This trial was one of the precursors for the passage of this legislation.

PhulmoniDasi

In 1889, the death of an 11-year-old Bengali girl PhulmoniDasiafter being brutally raped by her 35-year-old husband Hari Mohan Maitee served as a catalyst for its legislation.
Hari Mohan Maitee was acquitted on charges of rape, but found guilty on causing death inadvertently by a rash and negligent act.

Sarda Act

The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 was also known as Sarda Act. The act was passed on 28 September 1929.
As per the act the age of marriage for girls was fixed at 14 years and for boys it was 18 years.
This law is also known as the Sarda Act after its sponsor Harbilas Sarda, a judge and member of Arya Samaj.
This act applied to the whole of the British India and the Princely states were exempted from the purview of this act.
The Sarda Act was amended in 1978 to prescribe the age of marriage for a girl and boy as 18 and 21 years respectively.

Joshi Committee and the act

Various bills addressing questions on the age of consent were introduced in the Indian legislatures and defeated.
The Joshi Committee was formed for the purpose of recommending the age for marriage and consent for males and females in British India.
The All-India Women’s Conference, Women’s Indian Association and National Council of Women in India, through their members developed and articulated the argument in favour of raising of the age for marriage and consent before the Joshi Committee.
Muslim women presented their views to the Joshi Committee in favour of raising the age limit of marriage even when they knew that they would face opposition from Muslim Ulemas.
The Joshi Committee presented its report on 20 June 1929 and was passed by the Imperial Legislative Council on 28 September 1929 and became a law on 1 April 1930, after approval from Lord Irwin extending to the whole of British India.
It fixed 14 and 18 as the marriageable age for girls and boys respectively of all communities.

International law on child marriage

Along with the Indian laws and constitutional provisions modern international laws and conventions do mandate countries to stipulate a minimum legal age for marriage.

Some of the conventions are:

The United Nations (UN) Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages (1962).
The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979).
The Beijing Declaration (1995).