Union Cabinet clears proposal to raise marriage age of women from 18 to 21 years

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday passed a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years, bringing it at par with the minimum marriageable age for men..According to the Indian Express, the government will introduce an amendment to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 and subsequently to the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 along with other personal laws.The clearance that came through this Wednesday was based on the recommendations submitted to the NITI Aayog in December 2020. These recommendations were submitted by a task force, headed by former Samata Party Chief Jaya Jaitly. The committee had been constituted to examine matters pertaining to the age of motherhood, improvement of nutritional levels of females and decreasing maternal mortality rates. Top government expert VK Paul and senior officials of the Union Health Ministry, Union Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Union Law Ministry were among the members of the task force set up in June last year.The task force had stressed that a woman should be at least 21 years of age at the time of her first pregnancy. This delay would have a positive financial, social and health impact on families, society and children, the proposal reasoned..Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had issued notice in a plea seeking a transfer of the cases praying for uniform marriage age for men and women, from the High Courts to the apex court.The transfer petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay had stated that to avoid a multiplicity of litigation and conflicting views on the interpretation of Articles 14, 15, 21 and judgments on gender justice and equality, the top court should transfer petitions pending before the Delhi and Rajasthan High Courts to itself and decide them together.In his main petition seeking a uniform age for marriage, Upadhyay stated that there are specific religion-based laws which prescribe a certain age for marriage and that it is discriminatory of Articles 14 and 21.The provisions are:Section 60(1) of the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872;· Section 3(1)(c) of the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936;· Section 4(c) of the Special Marriage Act, 1954;· Section 5(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955;· Section 2(a) of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006.Upadhyay had prayed that the minimum marriage age for men and women should be fixed at 21..The plea had further urged the top court to direct the Central government to take appropriate steps to remove the anomalies in the minimum age of marriage and to make it ‘gender neutral, religion neutral and uniform for all citizens’ in spirit of the Articles 14, 15, 21 and International Conventions."Today, the minimum age for women is 18 as against 21 for men and this amounts to a blatant discrimination against women, the petition argues. It claims there no scientific backing for different ages for marriage except for the distinction based on patriarchal stereotypes perpetrating inequality against women that goes completely against the global trends," the petition stated..[Uniform marriage age for men and women] Supreme Court issues notice in plea to transfer cases from High Courts to Supreme Court