Child marriage : does it still exist ?

This title may find little weird to be found in this blog , why does Jish write this child marriage thing all on a sudden ?
I accidently saw , this matter about child marriage with a recent survey report at Indi blogger which was shocking. I decided to make my own contribution towards the cause and here it is !
We all know about the child marriage which was very common during the past century and it is banned now. That is ,a girl child has to be 18 years old to be legally eligible to get married in India. If she is married before this age , its duly child marriage. Actually, the word 'girl' doesn't have any meaning here , say 'woman' .
I still remember my grand grand mother who passed away before 5 years. She was mother to 8 children at a very younger age. She was married at the age of 14 to my grand grand father. This may not sound anything fishy as this was common during that period of time. What if this happens now in this 21st century ? It may sound little , slightly or say : most certainly rubbish. The fact is that , this rubbish still exists in many parts of the world, particularly in third world developing countries like India .

I am a native of kerala , the most literate state in India (according to sources) . If you have thought that child marriage doesn't exist in educated communities , its a wrong concept . It exists inbetween educated ,as well as uneducated people. Poverty , cultural norms are another root cause of this . Astrology factors might say that the girl had to be married at a certain age or her marriage would never happen etc  kind of things .This is because girls are considered as subjects that may remain as burden to family as their age hikes up .Girls don't have a voice in many families. This is more on rural areas , but the rate is not low in towns as well as cities. They have to or are forced to obey the society.

I am 18 years old and a neighbour girl of mine (just 17 years old) got married .She just had finished her +2 .Many girls in northern kerala and many north eastern , central India gets married by the age of 14,15,16,17 etc. Even though the legal age is 18 , I suggest this has to be risen for them to acquire proper education and be physiologically ready enough.

Child marriage is more common in states like Bihar , where more than half of marriages happening are child marriages. Girls complete their physical growth earlier in many parts of India now and became potent.But mentally , they might haven't reached the apt age . When these girls are married at this butterfly age , their life is shattered. They are subjected to  sexual  intercourse at that very younger age and they get pregnant by the age of 15,16 etc . This affects their health and also their children's health.They will be haunted by illnesses throughout the life.

Imagine a girl getting married and being a mother by the age of 15 , then what is she ? A machine to produce kids ? It's horrible This process repeats and leads to a very pathetic condition.
Can you imagine how it will be ?

Now , lets make a contrary imagination . Imagine a girl reaching puberty and let her grow healthy so as to prepare for healthy future.Let her be properly educated.Let her visit a gynaecologist regularly .Let her acquire good education , then a job . Now , let her get married and have children.Imagine this process continue for generations .
How it will be ? In that way, we could empower the position of girls in this society , this prevent child marriage.

There is a tradition called Mysore marriage in South India. Young girls at 14,15,16 from the states of Tamil nadu , northern kerala , karnataka etc. get married to people from Mysore who drive these girls to a pathetic condition , in many homes, these girls are treated as coolis and maids. There are many other kind of harrasments happening against girls at different places.

For girls to get proper importance and notice in society , they must be properly educated , so that they could find a job and earn on their own. Let them reach a good age apt for marriage and give them enough freedom till that .Let her get married on her wish. Moreover , the society must change the attitude of getting their girl children married earlier. This is a harmful tendancy which has to see a substantial change in the coming years.
In that way , we could avoid seeing child moms as well as at the same time :a better society , a better nation, a better world.

Jishnu....