Decision taken to increase legal age for a woman to get married from 18 to 21
The union cabinet took a decision to increase the legal age from 18 to 21 for women to get married. The decision was made on Wednesday. The first social progression step was taken by the British regime on September 28, 1929. The legal age for women was made 14 and for men 18 years of age. Then in 1978 Sarda law was amended. According to that law, the legal age for getting married was increased to 18 years for women and 21 for men, which has been the same till now. In 2006 parliament passed the prohibition of child marriage act.
Narendra Singh Modi announced the plan during the Independence Day address of 2020. He did said that the government is concerned about their daughters and sisters and to protect them from malnutrition it is necessary that they get married at the right age. The decision is based on recommendation of a four member task force led by former Samata Party Chief Jaitly. According to her girls aren’t fit for marriage where she actually should be working towards her career. Men get enough time to earn a living and set their feet out. Whereas marriage at 18 hinders her opportunity to go to the college and procure her dreams as she is capable of doing so much in her life.
I completely agreed with Miss Jaitly. We all have a misconception that women get completely mature by the age of 18 which might be true but definitely not that mature to get married. Instead, we can say she gets mature enough to take decisions and think rationally. If the country believes in equality then the legal age of marriage should also be equal.
She said that the assessment call was conducted with the young people from universities and colleges and rural area, who was in school or getting out of the school and the opinion of stakeholders, they all said the age for women to get married should be 22 or 23. Every religion in India gave the same opinion.100 girls from Haryana also wrote a letter to Narendra Singh Modi to raise the legal age for marriage.
She also said that the reason behind this is not to control population but to empower women.But along with increasing the legal age Government should also make some strict rules against child marriage. Child and women’s rights activists as well as population and family planning experts have not been in favor of increasing legal age to get married for a woman as it will not stop child marriage in India. When the legal age was 18, crime like child marriage was still taking place.
This is the best decision but Government should also educate people about this, specially in rural areas, where they tend to break the law. And should also come up with certain strict laws to abolish child marriage completely from India.
Updated by Shraddha Nagwekar