Debating Child Marriage: Beyond the Cage of Age

The persistent presence of child marriage, adolescent marriage, and more generally early and underage marriage of girls in contemporary India is seen as a major trouble spot in its developmental journey both in the concerned international and national forums. Mary John, in this outstanding book, enlivened with careful and sophisticated historical, sociological, legal and statistical analyses of various dimensions of underage marriage and their timings in past and present India, as well as in parts of Europe, China and the USA, raises a foundational and prior question, namely, why foreground age in arguing about a girl’s readiness to marry. This review attempts only to ‘uncover’ somewhat a few core ideas put forward by the author rather than ‘cover’ her vast argumentative oeuvre in its entirety.