Centre plans to increase legal marriage age of women from 18 to 21 years: Sources
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday had cleared a proposal to bring in uniformity in the marriageable age of men and women, sources said on Thursday.
The government has decided to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years, bringing it at par with that of men.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday had cleared a proposal to bring in uniformity in the marriageable age of men and women, sources said on Thursday.
The government is likely to bring a bill in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament to amend the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, they said.
The proposed bill may also seek to make consequential changes to various personal laws relating to marriage of various communities to ensure a uniform marriage age, the sources said.
As of now, the legal age of women to get married is 18 while that for men is 21 years.
The decision came a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that the government was deliberating on what should be the minimum age for marriage of women.
The decision is based on the recommendation of a four-member task force led by former Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitly.
Speaking about the recommendation, Jaitly said there were two main reasons that were focussed on.
"If we talk about gender equity and gender empowerment in every field, then we can't leave marriage out because this is a very odd message that girl can be fit to be married at 18 that cuts away her opportunity to go to college and the man has the opportunity to prepare himself for life and earning up to 21.
But these days when girls are capable of doing so much and the main reason why they are married off is because they are not an income earning member of the family but why do we allow them that feeling," she told PTI.
"We should give them an opportunity to earn and be equal to a man and she can't become equal at 18 when man has 21 years to do that. Secondly, we took opinions from lots of people but the main people who were most attentive were stakeholders themselves. We conducted assessment calls with young people - universities, colleges and in rural areas where they are still at school or getting out of school and the unanimous opinion of stakeholders was the marriageable age to be 22 or 23. Across all religions everyone had the same opinion which was a very heartening thing," she said.
Jaitly said the task force submitted its recommendations to the PMO, Women and Child Development Ministry and NITI Aayog last December.
The other members in the panel include Dr V K Paul, member (health) Niti Aayog, secretaries of higher education, school education, health, women and child development, legislative department apart from academicians Najma Akhtar, Vasudha Kamat and Dipti Shah.
Get Latest Business News, Stock Market Updates and Videos; Check your tax outgo through Income Tax Calculator and save money through our Personal Finance coverage. Check Business Breaking News Live on Zee Business Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe on YouTube.
RECOMMENDED STORIES
Power of Compounding: How many years will it take to reach Rs 3 crore corpus if your monthly SIP is Rs 4,000, Rs 5,000, or Rs 6,000
IRCTC Dividend 2024: Railway PSU announces 200% interim dividend - Check record date and other details
Power of Compounding: Salary Rs 25,000 per month; is it possible to create over Rs 2.60 crore corpus; understand it through calculations
Reduce Home Loan EMI vs Reduce Tenure: Rs 75 lakh, 25-year loan; which option can save Rs 25 lakh and 64 months and how? Know here
Top 7 Large and Mid Cap Mutual Funds with Best SIP Returns in 5 Years: No. 1 fund has turned Rs 15,000 monthly SIP investment into Rs 20,54,384; know about others
New Year Pick by Anil Singhvi: This smallcap stock can offer up to 75% return in long term - Check targets
PSU Oil Stocks: Here's what brokerage suggests on these 2 largecap, 1 midcap scrips - Buy, Sell or Hold?
04:21 PM IST