The centuries-old tradition is common among tribes in the west Indian state, writes RAHUL BEDIin New Delhi
THE RECENT decision by the provincial government in India’s western Rajasthan state to register all marriages, including child marriages, has triggered outrage among activists who claim such a move would promote the practice of infant weddings.
“This decision is contradictory to the law of registration of marriages, which stipulates the bride’s minimum age to be 18 and the groom’s 21,” said Kavita Srivastav of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. “Otherwise, the marriage is considered illegal. So how possibly can illegal marriages be registered?”
Child marriages are officially banned but the centuries-old tradition is common among local tribes in Rajasthan and some neighbouring states that follow the centuries-old practice with impunity.
Officials in Rajasthan’s home department, tasked with framing the rules that will make marriage registration compulsory in the state, are handicapped by a provincial assembly Bill that passed unnoticed last year. This Bill included the registration of child marriages.
Pradeep Sen of the home ministry said that as the rules were yet to be confirmed, it should not be construed that Rajasthan supported child marriages.
However he cautioned that the reality on the ground could not be ignored as many communities did follow this practice and all such aspects of the issue needed to be taken into account.
It is an open secret that hundreds of child marriages take place each year in Rajasthan, mostly among tribes and especially on the auspicious day of Akha Teej, which falls some time in April or May in keeping with the Hindu lunar calendar.
On this day, when the sun and moon are believed to be at their most benign positions, hundreds of infant brides and grooms, some as young as two, are married off.
Dressed in wedding finery and largely oblivious to the goings on around them, many such children even fall asleep while their marriages are solemnised around a sacred fire and their relatives celebrate.
The couples are then rudely roused to walk around the fire seven times to complete the wedding ritual, in keeping with ancient Hindu marriage rites.
The girls then return home and are sent to their in-laws’ house after reaching puberty.
Social activists are seeking to prevent child marriages through educating and economically empowering women in Rajasthan, a traditional state where women have few rights.
The activists are also campaigning to delay the traditional ceremony called mulligan, when the husband comes to claim his 15-year-old bride.
They want the marriages to be consummated only after the girl turns 18, but they find that traditions are hard to break among the poverty-ridden tribal societies.
The origin of infant marriages is unknown, but social scientists and village elders believe they started around the 10th century with the first Muslim invasions.
Fearing the conquering invaders would carry off their daughters, many rural families began marrying them off at an early age to ensure their safety.
So fiercely protective were the locals of their females that if they lost in battle, it was customary for all their women to undergo jauhar or mass suicide by immolating themselves.
If a man died before his wife, she had to undergo Sati, which involved jumping into her husband’s funeral pyre and thereby becoming pure.
The colonial government banned this practice in 1846 but stray cases of it have surfaced in Rajasthan in recent years.
In tribal culture the concept of a single woman is alien. The only truly single woman in a village is a widow and her social status is low.
There is also the fear that if a girl has not wed before the age of 15 she may never get married – or worse, that she could end up with a widower, thus exposing herself, in many cases, to maltreatment.
Money too plays an important part in the practice. Marrying an infant girl is more economical as her wrists and ankles are small and consequently less needs to be spent on silver bangles and anklets, a necessity for all brides, however poor.