Average marriage age in India. The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which intends to raise the legal marriage age for women from 18 to 21, will apply to all communities in the country and will override existing marriage and personal laws once implemented.
The Bill, which seeks revisions to the 2006 law and was introduced in Lok Sabha Tuesday by Smriti Irani, Union Minister for Women and Child Development, was submitted to a Parliamentary Standing Committee for further debate.
Irani’s Statement
According to Irani, the proposed legislation is secular. “All women of all faiths should have equal rights to marry either the Hindu Marriage Act or the Muslim Personal Law,” she stated.
“In sub-section (2) of section 1 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act), after the words “citizens of India without and beyond India,” the words, figures, and brackets “notwithstanding anything contrary or inconsistent therewith contained in the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872; the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936; the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937; the Special Marriage Arrangements Act, 1937;
‘(a) “child” implies a person or female who has not completed twenty-one years of age,’ according to the proposed change to define a kid.
Issues of Women Holistically
“In order to address the issues of women holistically, as a measure for women’s empowerment, gender equality, increasing female labour force participation, making them self-reliant, and enabling them to take decisions for themselves, the Bill, inter alia, proposes to — I amend the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, to reinforce its application overriding all other existing laws, including any custom, (ii) amend the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, to strengthen its application overrid.