Essay About Child Marriages And Birth Parents

Child Marriages In India
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Child Marriages
Child marriages were very common in ancient India. Although child marriages were
mostly common among the poor in India, some of the rich people also followed this
custom. The child marriage tradition was brought to India in the medieval age by the
Delhi Sultans who were ruling India at the time (Birodkar, n.d). Due to the major
problem of Muslim rebels roaming free in the streets of India, the custom of child
marriage was brought into the system to marry the girls off before they reach their
marriageable age (“A History of Child Marriage in Ancient India,” n.d). This also
prevented and protected a girl from losing her virginity before she got married. Girls got
married before they started menses, but they lived with their birth parents for a while
after the marriage (“A History of Child Marriage in Ancient India,” n.d). As soon as the
girls started menses, they would be sent over to their husbands home. It was believed
that a father who allows his unmarried daughter, who has started menses to live in his
home, is responsible for the sin of abortion that takes place in his daughters body every
month (“A History of Child Marriage in Ancient India,” n.d).
The custom of child marriage could be started when the mother is pregnant with a child.
The parents could promise another set of parents that the baby inside the mother will
marry their child. Usually, young girls would get married to older boys or men. For
example, a 7 year old girl could be married to a 17 year old boy.
There were many positive advantages of child marriage. Parents could decide to whom
their children would be marrying. Usually, parents would marry their children to
individuals from the same caste as them (rich marry the rich, poor marry the poor). The
parents would also marry their children into their friends families because they know the
family very well and they also know that their friends family would take good care of
their children.
However, there are some disadvantages of child marriage. There were several incidents
recorded where a wife was beaten and/or raped by her husband. The cause of this can
be because the husband is much bigger and stronger than the wife, who is younger and
more fragile than him. Because of the growing numbers in these incidents every year,
the government passed a law in 1927 which stated the minimum age allowed for a girl to
get married (“A History of Child Marriage