The Union Cabinet approved the proposal of increasing marriage age for women from 18 years to 21 years.
About the proposal by Union Cabinet:
This proposal was approved a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an announcement regarding this, in August of 2020, during the occasion of the Independence Day.
The task force:
The task force, led by Jaya Jaitley and was constituted in June 2020. It was constituted by the Ministry of women & child development, to re-examine the right age of marriage for girls.
It gave a report in December 2020. It had recommended that, minimum age of women at the time of giving birth to first child should be 21. Task force recommended to increase marriage age for girls from 18 years to 21 years. Proposal also correlated the marriage age to health & social indices like maternal mortality, infant mortality, and nutrition levels in mothers and children.
Consequence:
With the approval of this proposal, government will bring amendments to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, Hindu Marriage Act and Special Marriage Act for giving new proposal a shape.
Reactions of people:
At the same time this decision of the Government in the Union Cabinet meeting is widely being praised by the citizens of the nation.
While the online portals updated people about the government move, here are some of the comments from the netizens:
“The law is good, but it needs to be backed by social education. People are needed to be taught the social harms of child marriage. Because even now child marriages take place in remote areas. It needs to be prevented.”
“Yes it’s good.”
“Perfect decision.”
“The first requirement of any marriage is maturity. An 18 year old is not meant for marriage, but to learn, evolve and grow. Only this will lead to a healthy married life. Good job first time even govt.”
On other hand there were people who spoke against the decision commenting “No..If an 18 year old girl can vote and choose a leader of a country why can’t she choose a partner at 18.”
However, there were also some people who didn’t hesitate from questioning the reason behind this change of policy of the ruling dispensation.
