Summary
Contents
Love, Labour and Law: Early and Child Marriage in India is a path-breaking book on an issue that has not been analysed in depth for a while, perhaps since it does not affect the elite. Today, the child brides are usually from poor families. They are of 1517 years as compared to much younger brides in the earlier times. The book discusses why child marriages persist despite numerous legislative and policy initiatives to eliminate the practice. The chapters examine social and legal reforms to raise the age of marriage; contemporary education and health-related policy attempts at prevention; relationship of child marriage with child labour, sex work, human trafficking and other issues. Increasingly, there is greater resistance to marriages arranged by parents from the child brides themselves who can now access institutional and bureaucratic support. How hopeful are these developments? The book goes beyond a simple policy focus on elimination and provides a much-needed understanding of marriage and womens agency within the context of the Indian marriage system.
Preventing Child Marriage in West Bengal: The Experience of Barddhaman District
Preventing Child Marriage in West Bengal: The Experience of Barddhaman District
Child Marriage in West Bengal
Child marriage is prevalent in all Indian states in varying degrees. For a long time, we were concerned about its acuteness in certain northern and central Indian states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Haryana. Surprisingly, even in West Bengal, which witnessed a social reform movement since the early nineteenth century, the practice is rampant. According to the 2001 Census, 37.16 percent of the minor girls in the state have got married in between 1996–2001, while the corresponding figure for the country is 32.10 percent (UNICEF 2009: 4). The state had the seventh highest percentage of ...