Sex at 16, marry at 18: Big Indian adulthood debate

AGE ISSUES: Experts say 18 is the minimum age for marriage, but not the 'desirable' age.

    

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New Delhi: The Law Commission has come out with a new recommendation that an 18-year-old boy – or man – should be allowed to marry.

Eighteen is generally considered the age to enjoy and have fun, the age when you are still in your teens, not quite a child, not fully an adult.

In India being an 18-year-old also signifies the right to vote, to have a say in the governance of the world’s largest democracy. At 18, one is licensed to drive, if not drink. The Law Commission’s recommendation adds a bit more freedom to the 18-year-old’s life.

In its 44-page report presented to Justice Minister H R Bharadwaj, the recommendations included lowering the marriageable age for men from 21 to 18; allowing marriages of those below 16 to be annulled with mutual agreement and raising the age of sexual consent for girls from 15 to 16, irrespective of their marital status.

The Law Commission maintains that there is no scientific reason that a girl can marry at 18 but a boy cannot. The Commission contended that if a boy is considered a major at 18, her can certainly be considered old enough to be married.

India is already battling population explosion, domestic violence and poverty. Such a law may have ramifications which may not be desirable.

Debating this issue were lawyer and member of the Law Commission Kirti Singh, who was involved in drafting the recommendations; Professor Janaki Rajan from the Jamia Milia Islamia university and child rights’ activist, Jerry Pinto.

Kirti Singh contended that lowering the marriageable age for men to 18 was hardly the main point of the Law Commission report.

“The Law Commission was concerned with the effects of child marriage, particularly on a girl, because the Commission saw that it was a gender issue.”

She pointed out that the basic recommendation was that all marriages below a certain age should be considered void.

“The law right now is such that even if you marry at one, two, five, 10, the marriage is not void – it is voidable only at the insistence of the party,” she explained.

It is therefore that the Law Commission declared that all marriages where the principals are below the age of 16 should be void, and that all marriages between the ages of 16 and 18 can be made void at the insistence of the two parties, she noted.

Explaining the other points of the Law Commission report, Kirti Singh pointed out what she called a grave anomaly of the law.

“If it’s a married girl, her age of consent to sexual intercourse is 15, and if she is unmarried, then it is 16,” she said, highlighting the need to raise the age of consent uniformly.

Kirti Singh also stated that it was the recommendation of CEDO – Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women – that the marriageable age for girls being 18 but boys’ being 21 was rooted in patriarchal traditions and hence are discriminatory towards the girl.

“There is no biological reason to suggest that a girl is more mature than a boy and hence can be married off earlier at 18,” she said.

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