The negatives of early marriage

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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 remain preponderantly rural. The greater number in the population consider it safe to have their teenage girls married off at the fastest. According to tradition, a female who has not been married in her teens has perhaps missed the train of good luck because of some deficiency on her part. Thus, parents or guardians feel a psychological pressure to get the girls married early lest they face the prospects of spinsterhood. Besides, the egotistical and male dominated society also puts preference on the marriage of very young maidens. Young girls as brides are preferred by the bridegrooms and their family members over the older ones.
But the outcome of these practices are early motherhood with crushing burden of the same on these girls who have barely come out of childhood themselves. They lose their health in the process, many die while delivering babies and suffer other related health problems. The major casualty is their education leading to denial of awareness and consciousness and taking of the major decisions of their life such as marriage by themselves. The young and uneducated brides become the typical housekeepers and undernourished mothers of equally undernourished children and little else. Early marriage means faster procreation and adding undesirably to the already existing high population growth of the country in its overpopulated conditions.
Women constitute half the population of Bangladesh. The country's economy can gain a great deal if this half of the population can lead productive lives and are enabled to take conscious decisions of their own such as growing up to adulthood as single persons, marrying late and engaging in occupations outside the bounds of their homes. But this will require a social movement and the quicker it is launched by conscious groups in society, the better for the country in all respects.
Nasim Ahmed
Road no 4, Dhanmondi Residential Area,
Dhaka