This weekend The Irish Times ran a story about child marriages in the Indian state of Rajasthan.
Apparently the Rajasthan government recently decided to register all marriages, including child marriages and activist groups there are worried that this will encourage child weddings.
The article explains that while the origin of child weddings isn’t known, it is believed to date back to the 10th century. Child marriages are apparently an “open secret” in Rajasthan. The legal marital age in India is 18 for females and 21 for males, making all child weddings illegal, so it is absurd that they would even consider registering them. The article explains that single women are given the lowest status in communities which practice child marriages, so one of the reasons why parents decide to marry their infant daughters is to ensure that they don’t remain unwed as adults. Another reason the article posits for infant weddings, is that all brides are required to have silver bracelets and anklets and since children have smaller wrists and ankles than adults, it costs less to provide them with the necessary jewelry.
Reading this article was so depressing. The thought of children as young as two being married is horrible. In some cases the child brides are married to child grooms, and while this is obviously still an infringement on their human rights, this seems slightly less horrific as they are allowed to live with their parents until they reach puberty. The accounts of child brides being married to adult men who force them to consummate the marriage when the bride is only 15, are far more appalling.
I obviously knew child marriages still existed but I hadn’t thought about them in some time, so this article was a sobering reminder. I posted about the archaic, sexist origins of some wedding traditions a couple of days ago and I commented on the disparity between the violent history behind some weddings and the modern concept of the wedding being all about the bride. It was important to remember that in some parts of the world, things have not changed as much as we would like.
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I think it still happens in a lot of countries and communities people don't always think of like some Mormon communities, Nomadic tribes in Northern Africa, certain Muslim nations even the ones we think are progressive like Saudi Arabia and UAE. Really good post, thanks for putting that out there.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you liked it. I should do more research on the topic, it's very interesting...
ReplyDeletei had never known that children were actually married off as infants. that's absurd, especially since children cannot think for themselves at all at such a young age... not that arranged marriages are much better, but once children are older they can at least form opinions and voice their discontent, instead of just growing up with a spouse like you would grow up with a sibling. that is weird.
ReplyDeletei know, it's so crazy.
ReplyDelete