Child Marriage in India - Is Child Marriage really an Indian tradition or its just a rumour?

 

In the years to come and in the generations passed by you pick up any book or the past texts you will find that child marriage is linked with the Indian Tradition. Now, why is child marriage said to be the Indian tradition of marrying young girls of the age even less than 10? The reason behind it can be many, but the biggest reason is that it has spread out in the world that child marriage was a practice in India that is still prevalent. Not only in India but also in Sub-Saharan Africa it is prevalent where 38% of girls become child brides. 2015-16 reports of UNICEF estimated that India's child marriage rate is 27%. The reports of UNICEF claim that there are 285 million child brides in India of which 102 million are married below the age of 15. Over 15,000 cases of child marriage are reported only in the state of Maharashtra. 

India is said to follow the tradition of child marriage but there is no evidence written in any of the ancient books which claim that child marriage was prevalent in India. It started in the 10th century when the country was governed by the Delhi Sultanate empire. The attack of Mahmud Ghazni in India rattled the houses and peace of the civilians in India. Kidnapping the women, and girls and exchanging them with one another was what started after his commencement in India. So, the first thing is clear child marriage was never a part of the Indian culture. Our ancient texts mention only these eight types of marriages - BRAHMA VIVAH, ARSHA VIVAH, GANDHARVA VIVAH,  ASUR VIVAH, AIVA VIVAH, RAJAPATYA VIVAH, RAKSHASA VIVAH, PAISHACH VIVAH.  Other than this the MATSYA AND GARUDA PURANA say that the marriage age of a girl is 20 and not less than that because she should get married only when she is emotionally, physically, and socially able to fulfill the duties of a married girl. The KAMA SUTRA chapter 6 says the following verse "vivah dharmasye upuktam aayu iti streeyanam parivrette" which means that only at a certain mature age a girl should marry. There is nothing such as child marriage mentioned. In fact, in ancient Greece and the Roman empire girls above 12 years and boys above 14 years were seen to get married, and also shreds of evidence of teenage motherhood are found. 

There can be the five major reasons for child marriage :

• Illiteracy: The masses of India being uneducated suffer from serious drawbacks and tend to marry their girls at an early age thinking that this will reduce the burden on their heads as girls are considered to be the burdens on their father's heads.
• Poverty: Many rural families and even some in the cities also marry their girls at an early age thinking that one of the families will be reduced due to which they can lead slightly a better lifestyle. 
• Dowry: Masses of the rural areas in India think that if the girl will grow older then they will have to give more dowry for the repentance of her age. Due to this, they think that marrying them at an early age will be much cheaper and will not be burdensome. 
• danger knocking outside: India is estimated to be in the top 10 dangerous countries for women where 77 girls are raped every day. This not only surprises anyone but instills fear in the minds of the parents. They start thinking that before something should happen with their daughters they should marry them as they consider it to be a safe alternative. 
  
  
  

However, society is strange but it is in our hands to check out and search that nothing of such sort happens around us. The NATIONAL FAMILY HEALTH SURVEY (NFHS) brings up that maternal mortality and infant mortality are one of the biggest issues in India. It claims that girls who face teenage pregnancy are prone to severe health-related problems of which 2M girls in India are struggling with fistula-related problems. 

Child marriage was never a part of our tradition so it should never be. The only way can be to educate the masses and inform especially the girls and women in the rural areas about the pros and cons of early marriage and teenage pregnancy as only this could be the way out. 

Hope you guys found it helpful.

Please share it with your friends and comment down in the comment section below.

Follow https://askrisfor.blogspot.com/ for more such updates.

Visit us again.

Thank you!!