The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 along with the amendment bill is an intriguing one. By the name, you may think that it simply prohibits such marriages where both or one of the parties is a child.
But before you make any assumption, let me ask- what does child mean?
If you are of the view that anyone below 18 years of age is a child and what’s new in it then here is the catch.
As per 2006 Act, Sec 2(a) “child” means a person who, if a male, has not completed twenty-one years of age, and if a female, has not completed eighteen years of age;
and as per new amendment bill ‘(a) “child” means a male or female who has not completed twenty-one years of age;’.
18-21 group but Child?
The first thing to ponder upon is that if this act wants to put a restraint on the marriage of people below 21 years then what’s the necessity to term them as child. Some new term may be coined for people below 21 years or for the bracket of 18-21 instead of distorting the usually understood definition of child.
And if the name of the act is about prohibiting the marriage between children, then why the same act also provides the ways to validate child marriages.
If the amendment bill to raise the age of female to 21yrs is passed, then some new questions will also arise. If any husband engages in sexual intercourse with wife between the age of 18-21 years without her consent will that amount to crime as presently there is no concept of marital rape in India.
Supreme Court in Independent Thought v UOI, 2017 made it clear that sexual intercourse with a wife below the age of 18yrs without her consent amounts to rape but on account of her being minor. Or do we mean to say there is a difference in the ‘without consent’ of the wives below 18yrs and in 18-21 age bracket?
The new amendment and it's effects
Before commenting on the usefulness of this amendment bill, we also need to look back why the parent act i.e. PCMA was brought at first place and how much it achieved its objective. By changing the age to 21 for females we are only increasing the scope of the act but even after 15 years of PCMA we very well know how many child marriages still happens in our society.
The proper remedy to stop child marriages will be education and awareness.
Many females are married at early age so that they do not ‘elope’ with someone and become safe by getting the badge of married. Financial independence of females is still a far-fetched phenomenon as we live in a society where it is very normal to ask- What’s the need for the girl to work after marriage as husband already earns well.
My main issue is about the confusion on the term child through this Act. If there is a direct and clear way to reach the destination then why to look for congested streets to reach at. We can hope that anomaly around ‘child’ is resolved soon.
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