I may
be mistaken, but the term "child marriage" has been part of the
Indian social discourse at least since the early 19th century and
has deep historical roots. Initially, it was literally about the practice of
children being married off - sometimes as young as five or six years
old (and the practice continues in some parts of India). The marriage
act has steadily raised the the minimum age for marriage over the years - at one
stage it was 12 or 14. Even at that stage, the term child marriage was relevant.
Now, the marriage act raises it to 18. So, a girl of 17 married off
would violate this law (the marriage would not be legal). But the
"phenomenon" of child marriage in terms of concern among social activists is not
really about 17 year olds - its about far younger children. In our home
neighborhood, it is not uncommon for girls of 12 or 13 to be married off in
poor Muslim families & in other areas of the country, at pre-puberty
stages. The second aspect of the problem is that such marriages may
often violate consent -the girl often has no choice in the matter. So, there is
an aspect of involuntary behavior and coercion that is mostly not relevant
to teenage marriages (and pregnancies) here.
Regarding, the distinction between use of the term "foeticide" and
"choice" the issue is much clearer. It is linked to "family" pressures to
produce male children and terminate female pregancies - in great number of
instances, in violation of the real wishes of the mother. In other words,
if women had the right to choose in India, there would probably be smaller
number of abortions performed in India, particularly in the lower middle class
urban segment. To put it differently, an anti-abortionist in India is not
going to face much opposition from advocates of women's right to choose
(except for those who represent the educated urban upper elite) - the real
opposition will be from people that are not really concerned about women,
but rather of the extended families' right to gender choice of
offsprings.
Santanu.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 9:22 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Assam] Delimitation and redistrictingDilipda
The American way of _expression_ of things often amazes me a lot.Marriage under 18 are studied as the phenomenon of " Child Marriage" in India.A similar phenomenon is studied as " Teenage Marriage' in the US.Similarly, " abortion" is treated in liberal discourse in the US as a matter of " A woman's right to choose", while in Indian liberal discourse, it is labeled as " Foeticide".Isn't funny ?
KJD
_______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [email protected] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam
Mailing list FAQ: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
