Upping the age for marriage

The trend of early marriage, specially of females, is still found to be strong among the rural people in Bangladesh in a situation where the population of the country remains preponderantly rural. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that the outcome of early marriages is early motherhood with its crushing burden on girls who have barely come out of childhood themselves. Early marriage means faster procreation and adding undesirably to the already existing high population growth of the country in its overpopulated conditions. Such a practice involving girls who are at the peak of their fertility leads to high population growth rate. Hence, it has to be clearly appreciated by all concerned that reducing population growth is so much dependent on discouraging early marriage of girls. Although there are laws at present to prevent early marriage, such laws are hardly enforced, particularly in the non-urban areas of the country. Only publicity and persuasion will not be enough to effectively discourage early marriage. A piece of legislation, as noted earlier, is there that none below eighteen years of age can marry. But this requirement can be easily hoodwinked through false birth certificates and other ways. Here, creating a greater awareness among the people about the serious adverse impact of early marriage assumes a great deal of importance. Meanwhile, a new piece of legislation should also be passed to put a ban on the marriage of not only girls but also of boys in their teens. An age limit of at least twenty-two to twenty-four years should be set as the minimum age limit for marrying, applicable to both sexes. And such laws must strictly be enforced. There should be no scope for hoodwinking real enforcement of the laws on this count. Masood Noor Mohammadpur Dhaka