CHILD MARRIAGE IN INDIA

Evening Star, Issue 20364, 21 December 1929, Page 22

CHILD MARRIAGE IN INDIA

The Child Marriage Protection Bill was passed by the Indian Legislative Assembly on September 23 by 67 votes to 14. This Bill raises the legal age of marriage to fourteen years for girls and eighteen years for boys._ What this will mean for the amelioration and the lot of Indian women can be best and most briefly illustrated by the following paragraph from the report of the Age of Consent Committee:—

In 1921, in the Boihbay Presidency, there were 1,661 girls married or widowed under one year of age; 1,671 girls married' or widowed between one and two years of age; 4,378 girls married or widowed between three and four years of ago; 7,219 girls married or widowed between three and four years of age; 12,834 girls married or widowed between four and five years of age; 193.582 girls married or widowed between five and ten years of age; and 498,706 girls married or widowed between ten and fifteen years of age.

Indian women have earned on an energetic and patient propaganda for the passing of this merciful Bill, and are to be congratulated on their active share in the work for the instruction of public opinion and the pressure brought to bear upon the legislators which have made its adontion possible.