Religious and other conservatives are busy floating a trial balloon to argue that to end the discrimination against women implicit in the legally valid age of marriage being pegged at 18 years for them as opposed to 21 for men, equality before law could be achieved by reducing the marriageable age for men to 18 too.
There is, however, reason to be sanguine that the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday overcame its reluctance to intervene and agreed to examine whether it should adjudicate the issue of declaring a uniform minimum marriage age for men and women, will pay no heed to such a desperate, last throw of the dice to prevent gender-equal civil laws.
A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice A S Bopanna, and Justice V Ramasubramanian issued notice on a transfer petition by lawyer and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay who submitted that cases pertaining to a uniform marriage age, in which he has prayed for the minimum marriage age for men and women be fixed at 21, were pending in Delhi and Rajasthan High Courts and urged the top court to adjudicate on the matter.
The top court is already seized of Upadhyay’s petitions seeking uniform laws for divorce, alimony and maintenance as well as laws for uniform adoption and guardianship. The uniformity in marriage age, if it comes about, would be the third component of a putative Uniform Civil Code.
The usual suspects, it may safely be predicted, will soon begin to express their apprehension / horror / sadness ~ take your pick ~ at the expansion of the legal domain to cover so-called ‘politically sensitive issues’ such as those pertaining to the personal laws of various communities in India. This is the kind of communitarian blackmail those who have upheld repressive patriarchy and gender discrimination for centuries have indulged in.
The Supreme Court, on the contrary, needs to be lauded for its progressive mindset for at least agreeing to examine whether it should adjudicate in a matter which is clearly central to the concept of equality before the law regardless of gender. That there is zero scientific backing for different ages for marriage for men and women is well-established.
Here is a chance, then, for the Indian political system as a whole to redeem itself by supporting, across party lines, Upadhyay’s petition which argues that “this distinction is based on patriarchal stereotypes perpetrating inequality against women that goes completely against the global trend.”
Many may disagree with the petitioner’s politics and they could continue to do so. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater would be doing a signal disservice to those who bring babies into the world, as it were.
