Socio-legal and human rights dimensions of child marriage in India

This thesis explores socio-legal and human rights dimensions of an age-old problem of child marriages of young girls in India. Right from the 19th century efforts were made by social reformers to raise the age of marriage for girls. However, the problem still stands unresolved on a large scale. By using the social science data, the thesis documents the extent of problem in India and critically analyses how the patriarchal social structure supports the practice of child marriage in the name of culture and tradition by suppressing women's life experiences. Child marriage adversely affects health, particularly the reproductive health of young girls. It denies them the right to education and development. It makes them live the rest of life in servility. The law regulating the age of marriage though was enacted in 1929 in India, by and large it remains unimplemented. There are many substantive and procedural lacunae in it. There are contradictions between it and the religion-based marriage laws, guardianship laws, and the rape law. Besides, the judiciary has not interpreted these laws dynamically. The result is millions of girls are married off when they are young. Based on the feminist theory ‘asking the woman question’ the thesis argues that the young girls are discriminated by the law, culture, and society against their counterparts on the basis of sex, gender and age when they are married off before they attain the legal age. The thesis argues that child marriage is a form of slavery and it violates number of human rights of the young girls. It explores those human rights and pleads that the Indian State is under obligation to protect, respect and fulfil human rights of the young girls as it has ratified the relevant international human rights treaties. It suggests several strategies at national and international level that would help prevent child marriages in future and in turn would provide opportunities to those girls to live in dignity. The human rights approach in the feminist framework adopted in this thesis attempts to offer a pragmatic and holistic solution to the social problem of child marriages of the young girls.