Divya Ashwani & Anishka Sharma, Seedling School of Law and Governance, Jaipur National University
ABSTRACT
In India quest for achieving women empowerment, the Indian Prime Minister on 15th of August 2021 addressed that a step of women empowerment is taken through the measure of raising age of Marriage for girls from 18 to 21. The bill proposed by the Cabinet on 21st of December, 2021 suggested increasing legal marriage age of a girl from 18 to 21, claiming it to be a step of women empowerment and a task force has also been made for recommendations and ground level Issues. In India legal age for Marriage for girls is 18 whereas it’s 21 for boys. In 1929, the marriage age for women in India was raised to 14 years. Some studies have clearly showed that marital time affects quality of marriage itself and many studies have proven that early stages of marriage has shown marital incapability. Is it a right step for woman Empowerment? Does it carry the underlying issue of Early age Marriage? This Article unties the knots around the complicated discourse of Women Rights related to marriage and empowerment in India and proposes some regulatory changes to streamline the process towards ensuring reasonability and equitability. It begins by articulating the concept of women rights and its issues and examines the practical challenges which arise with regard to Marriage age. Apart from issue of marital age, women issues also suffer from problems relating to the motherhood, malnutrition and Patriarchal Dominance. Therefore, this article examines the loopholes which emerged in underwriting a woman right’s issue.
Keywords: Child Marriage, Women Empowerment, Women Rights, Motherhood.
