Child Marriage in India - Essay Example

Child marriage in India Introduction A couple of decades ago the Indian movies were incredibly popular,and their heroines seemed extraordinary beautiful singing birdies. Speaking about real Indian women, the opinion about them and their life is formed predominantly on the basis on beautiful cinema stories. However, watching movie, the spectators very often feel that the things are quite different in reality. Since childhood the girls in India are taught their main mission – to be a wife. Little girls are allowed to use cosmetics. At early age they color eyes and lips. As soon as a girl is born in a family, the parents start saving money to prepare a dowry. Child marriage is still a very serious problem of the Indian society. The issue is worth-discussing, thus the given work will study the current situation from the literature, analyze the progress made, and make the corresponding conclusion. Literature review The religious obligation of an Indian is to organize the marriage of his daughter before the appearance of her sexual maturity indications. Indians believe that a girl can be innocent only before her birth. Therefore, brides sometimes get married in a maternal womb. Childrens marriages are known in India from time immemorial. Thus, the heroine of the well-known epos "Ramayana" married Rama when she was only six yeas old. Many Indians followed this example. For instance, the leader of liberating fight Mahatma Gandhi and the first president of Republic of India Rajendra Prasad married the coevals when they were only thirteen. However, it is interesting to investigate the current literature to see what the current situation is and how this phenomenon can be explained. According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the phenomenon of early marriages can be explained by variety of reasons. In the XI century Muslim conquerors came to India. Unmarried Indian females were considered as spoils of war. The fear for the destiny of daughters made parents decide on their future when they were little children. The spread of child marriages was also promoted by the increased sexuality of Indians. A French missionary Jean-Antoine Dubois who preached in India for more than 30 years, claimed that Indian women did not have sufficient determination to resist passionate entreaties of numerous tempers. They cant oppose to the call of the nature and, therefore, parents should hurry to give them "untouched" to their husbands (Child marriages in India). The researchers from Innocenti Research Center explain that in India for a girl who lost girl innocence, a marriage was impossible. She was deemed to the destiny of a beggar or a prostitute. For the reason of the irresponsibility a woman should have stayed under continuous supervision – at first of the father, then of her husband and sons (Early marriage. Child spouses). Bott et al (2003) points out that in Hinduism a husband was the highest deity for a wife. She never called him by name. A religious debt of a father was to make her the daughter get married before the appearance of maturity signs. The hair-covering on a body of an unmarried girl was considered as a sin of her ancestors, the growth of breasts – of descendants, and each period was a mortal sin of a murder of a fetus. The father of a girl, who did not get married on time, lost all the privileges. A son born by such a woman profaned the sacred food sacrificed to ancestors (Bott et al, 2003). According to Alim & Rashid (2005), at first child marriages were the privilege of the highest groups of society. Later the custom was extended also on the representatives of the lowest castes, which sought to imitate the nobility. The British who ruled India since 1757, for a long time preferred not to interfere with the traditional ceremonies and customs of Indians to avoid the religious conflicts. However, under the pressure of Christian missionaries and also the reformers of Hinduism in 1829 British nevertheless forbade a barbarous custom of self-immolation of widows. In 1860 the minimum age to start sexual relations for the woman was established as ten years old. In 1881 it was changed to twelve years old, and in the 1929 – to fourteen. However, these solutions were treated as just advisory (Alim & Rashid, 2005). Malhotra et al (2011) reminds that the census carried out in 1921 revealed more than 600 brides under 12 years old. Shocked with these circumstances, Mahatma Gandhi convinced the famous lawyer Sharda to prepare the bill, which would forbid early marriages. The Sharda Law came in force in 1929. It is remarkable that the author of it got married at the age of nine. After independence was achieved and the Republic of India was declared in 1947, the Indian legislators came back to a problem of a fight against childrens marriages. In 1955 the law, according to which only over eighteen year old women can get married, was adopted. On October 1, 1978 the amendment was made to the current law: for men the age was set as 21 years, and for women – 18 years. These age restrictions are in force now (Malhotra et al, 2011). Discussion The study of current literature shows that the issue is taken seriously by the government. However, despite the adopted laws and the indignation of public organizations, Indians prefer to make their children get married before the legal adulthood. According to Indian mass media, from 50 to 70% of Indians get married before 18 years. The national record belongs to the state Rajasthan where the average age of brides is 15,8 years. According to the last census of 2001, about 3 million Indians became mothers under the age of fifteen (Malhotra et al, 2011) In modern India the members of the highest castes abstain from early marriages, primarily seeking to provide their children with prestigious education. But child marriages are actively practiced by the representatives of the lower social groups and tribes. Organizing an early marriage of their daughters, parents thereby cut down the expenses on their keeping. The grooms family, in its turn, gets a free worker in the household. In the large families parents try to organize the weddings of all children at one time to economize. The brides in India are in deficit. According to the census of 2001, the number of women is lower than the number of male citizens. Being afraid to leave the son unmarried and to violate the religious principles, parents consciously violate the law (Bott et al, 2003). According to Indian mass media, the parliament of the country is going to make the amendment to Sharda Law demanding obligatory registration of all the marriages making religious ceremony invalid without it. Thus, the weddings of children under eighteen will become almost impossible. Public organizations, having failed to get the understanding from parents of young grooms and brides, conduct active propaganda in schools. Gradually, this work bears fruit. 15-year-old Shital Pawar from the Pune city called the number of a hotline and reported that her parents are arranging her marriage. The wedding was cancelled. However, such cases are rather exceptions. For example, only at St. Josef’s school in the Parbatpura city of the Rajasthan state there are more than 100 married couples among pupils. In such situation the only measure the representatives of non-governmental organizations can take is to attend all the marriage ceremonies and to convince young husbands to refrain from matrimonial duties until their wives are eighteen. “Birth, marriage and death are the standard trio of key events in most people’s lives. But only one – marriage – is a matter of choice” (Early marriage. Child spouses, 2001, p.2). Unfortunately, Indian youth do not have an opportunity to make this choice due to the prejudices. Moreover, they deprived of this right by their own parents. Conclusion The conclusion can be made that the problem of early marriages still persists. Child marriages in India have strong historical roots. Thus, it is very difficult to quickly eliminate this tradition. Early marriages in India are connected with the concern of parents: they want their daughter to get married before the active period of puberty starts, because later it will be impossible to control her relations with the representatives of the opposite sex. Certainly, such traditions appear as a result of ignorance of their parents. They do not want to recognize the rights and freedoms of their children and impose old traditions on them. Such situation can be resolved gradually by means of hard work of volunteers who should direct their efforts on making young generations understand that they will not offend any religion by making their own important choice in life. References Alim, A. & Rashid, A.T. (2005). Building Positive Attitudes towards Gender Equality: A Baseline Survey of Gender Quality Action Learning Programme. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Research and Evaluation Division, BRAC. Bott, S., Jejeebhoy, S., Shah, I., Puri, C. (2003). Towards Adulthood: Exploring the Sexual and Reproductive Health of Adolescents in South Asia. Geneva: World Health Organization Malhotra, Anju, Warner, Ann, McGonagle. Allison, Lee-Rife, Susan. (2011). Solutions to End Child Marriage. International Center for Research on Women. Retrieved December 7, 2014 from http://www.icrw.org/files/publications/Solutions-to-End-Child-Marriage.pdf Child marriages in India. An analysis of available data. (2012). United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Retrieved December 7, 2014 from http://www.unicef.in/documents/childmarriage.pdf Early marriage. Child spouses. (2001). Innocenti Research Center. Florence, Italy. Retrieved December 7, 2014 from http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/digest7e.pdf Read More