Paradoxes seem to be the order of the day in the South Asian region. Perhaps the oldest one is that high per capita income co-exists with high malnutrition, and famine does with availability of food. Amid celebration of development decades, South Asia still lingers with the highest incidence of girls marrying during childhood or early adolescence. Believe it or not, Bangladeshis are reported to have the third highest rate of child marriage anywhere in the world. According to a recent estimate, roughly 40 per cent of Bangladeshi girls are married off before they are 15, and three-fourths before they reach the age of 18. Available evidences also show that over one-fifths of those who are brides before reaching 15 years become mothers of three or more children before they are 24.
M Niaz Asadullah of the University of Malaya and Zaki Wahhaj of the University of Kent jointly produced an interesting paper on 'Child Marriage Law and Freedom of Choice in Bangladesh'. We reckon that the paper has meat in both policy and academic senses. But before that, the authors reason the paradoxes paraphrased as follows: First, there has been a significant decline in household poverty in recent years which is commonly identified as a key determinant of child marriage. Second, gender equality has been attained in educational access, which is supposed to give young adolescents voice and say. Many consider education as the most effective means of reducing girl child marriage. Yet substantial improvements in girl education in Bangladesh have not been translated into equivalent reductions in child marriage. Third, Bangladesh has been described as a development outlier in popular commentaries for exceptional progress in social indicators. This has been attributed to expanding opportunities for women and non-governmental organisation (NGO)-led initiatives that place women at the forefront in service delivery. These changes have arguably increased the economic value of women.
Although, similar to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006 in India, there is a law regarding minimum age of marriage at 18 years, the current law is being honoured more in breach than in practice. On top of it, the Bangladesh government has argued that denying parents the legal mandate to marry off their daughters can, paradoxically, lead to a higher incidence of child marriage and create further social problems. The logic rests on the idea that with an increasing number of adolescent girls attending secondary school in rural areas and working in the industrial sector, they are more likely to encounter situations where they may be taken advantage of by men, pressured into sexual relationships or persuaded to elope. In traditional society, marriage provides social protection to girls against such tendencies.
In 2014, the researchers conducted a nationwide survey of over 7,500 married women aged between 20 and 39 years living across Bangladesh. Consistent with the recent Demographic Health Survey (DHS) for Bangladesh, they observed that over three-fourths of respondents were married before their18th birthday. The survey data, although non-experimental, provides a unique perspective to the debate as one can exploit marriage-related social norm in Bangladesh. The norm in question forbids the marriage of girls before they have attained puberty. The prevalence of early marriage among girls in Bangladesh means that this constraint is often binding. The variation in the onset of menarche among girls constitutes natural experiment to study the consequences of an exogenous change in the timing of marriage of Bangladeshi women. Using this variation, we investigate how lowering the legal minimum age would affect women regarding their own marriage and their cognitive development. These outcomes capture different factors that, arguably, should be valued for their own sake in evaluating policy or legal changes that will have an impact on the life choices of women.
The authors of the paper estimate that a one-year delay in marriage increases schooling by 0.68 years for girls. Furthermore, for each year the marriage is delayed, the age of first childbirth increases by 0.84 years. We also find that women who marry later (as a consequence of delayed onset of menarche) report a higher ideal age of marriage for girls and they are less likely to agree with statements articulating a traditional gender norm-for example, that good nutrition, education, outdoor sports are less important for girls than for boys. Shifts in these beliefs are significant as they can shape the choices that these women make for their own daughters, and consequently the human capital develop mentor the next generation.
"These estimates indicate that there is a range of positive outcomes associated with delayed marriage. Legislation which makes it easier for parents to marry off their daughters early may undo these positive effects.
"About 83 per cent of the married women in our study had their marriages arranged by their parents or other relatives; 38 per cent were married by the age of 15, and 77 per cent by the age of 18. In response to the question 'what was the most important reason for the marriage?,' only 3 per cent mentioned 'parental concern about my physical safety.' By contrast, 72 per cent answered that their 'parents felt it was too good a proposal to refuse.' Only 14 per cent of women in our sample met their husbands without arrangement by their parents. These women were less likely to marry by age 15 (32 per cent) than those who had arranged marriages (39 per cent); and less likely to say that they 'would have preferred to delay their marriage' (32 per cent) than women who had arranged marriages (40 per cent).
"If we focus on women from more impoverished backgrounds in our sample-specifically those whose fathers owned less than half an acre of land and were either day-labourers or artisans-the patterns are very similar: a similar proportion met their husbands without the arrangement of their parents; these women were less likely to marry young and less likely to say that they would have preferred to delay their marriage.
"Our figures and reasoning suggest a different approach to the issue. Any changes in child marriage law should aim to improve the capacity of adolescent girls to exercise their own choice rather than circumvent it. It is not lack of parental agency, but the lack of agency among adolescent girls themselves which is the main source of their vulnerability. Increased agency among adolescent girls regarding marriage decisions is likely to translate into delayed marriage. Furthermore, it is an important goal in its own right, consistent with Amartya Sen's view of 'development as freedom.' In this context, NGO-led initiatives such as the Adolescent Development Programme of BRAC and BALIKA (Bangladeshi Association for Life Skills, Income, and Knowledge for Adolescents) can play an important role".
The writer is Professor of Economics at Jahangirnanagr University.
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