Early marriage hinders women education

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Although marriage as a sacred bond has immense importance in human society and civilisation, wedlock between a boy and a girl at their early age, however, invites disaster leading to acute sufferings in future, reports BSS.
There perhaps no specific date is known as to when early marriage was introduced in society but it is assumed that the clan to tribal culture in ancient days and also feudal system afterwards have initiated such a custom.
With the passage of time, early marriage has spread in society and it is still in practice in the 21st century.
Several progressive persons even a hundred years ago were vehemently against early marriage. Many more people in later periods came forward to break this system and waged movement against it. A law was introduced in 1929 against early marriage but it could not fully stop this social curse.
Early marriage and divorces are on the rise in different unions of Kazipur Upazila in Sirajganj district situated on the western side of the Jamuna Bridge in northern Bangladesh. The main reason behind divorce in this area is early marriage and dowry.
According to statistics a boy and a girl get into wedlock well before they reach the stage of taking up the responsibility of family and children. An adolescent girl becomes a mother within a year of marriage with her health deteriorating due to bearing a child at the marriage age.
Also unbearable responsibilities like rearing up children and taking care of her husband and parents-in-law are to be shouldered by the girl. She becomes the mother of 2/3 children even before reaching maturity.
On the other hand, the young husband at his tender age gets tired of looking after his family poverty and soon gets an excuse to get into quarrels with his wife, ultimately leading to raising a demand for dowry.
The poor fathers of such brides sometimes are forced to pay dowry to their sons-in-law with the vain hope that it will bring happiness for their daughters.
But at a certain stage, divorce destroys the marriage eventually proving that early marriage is the root cause of such disasters in the life of child-couples.
According to statistics, parents of brides and grooms sometimes force their children into marriage, showing a 12 year girl as 18 years old and a 16 year boy as 22 years old. The Kazis or marriage registrars, in rural areas collaborate in this heinous act.
Many guardians are marrying off their daughters who happen to be students of class three only thus depriving their girls of proper education. Since the foremost condition of a developed nation is an educated mother, early marriage is shutting the door for women.
Bangladesh is one of the countries where the trend of early marriage is high. "Although early marriage and early motherhood are creating acute problems in our country, we are seldom aware of it," the statistics said.
Marriage between an under-18 girl and under -21 boy is banned by a law in Bangladesh, but most girls in the country get married between the ages of 12 and 18. Nearly 60 percent girls become mothers within 13 months of their wedding and most girls living in rural areas give birth to the first child within a year.
"The rate of maternal mortality in Bangladesh is a 4.26 per thousand but it shoots up to 6 in the cases of mothers aged less than 18 years," the statistics said.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO) maternal mortality is 2-5 times higher among the under-18 mothers than those more than 20 years of age.