Women's Marriage Age Raised From 18 to 21?

In a proposal passed by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday, the marriage age of women was raised from 18 to 21 years which is the same as men.

Right after the Cabinet's approval, it was mentioned by the sources that, the government will propose an amendment to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, as well as changes to the Special Marriage Act and personal laws like the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

The permission comes after a task force led by Jaya Jaitly from the Centre presented recommendations to Niti Aayog in December 2020 to look into "matters pertaining to the age of motherhood, imperatives of lowering MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate), improvement of nutritional levels, and associated aspects."

It was said that the aim is women's empowerment. It is not regarding population control or anything else, but mainly for the betterment of a woman. As per the data from the National Family Health Survey 5, India's Total Fertility Rate (TFR) fell below the replacement threshold of 2.1 for the first time, indicating that a population explosion in the coming years is improbable. Child marriage has also decreased slightly from 27% in 2015-16 to 23% in 2019-21, according to the data.