When the law becomes religion

Police in India stopped a child marriage just in time - news link. Sounds very noble, but the bride was just 2 weeks short of turning 18 years old! The poor and powerless construction worker parents are probably wondering why the erudite law offices think in 2 weeks their daughter is going to be able to decide for herself. This is how mindlessly enforcing rules transition from science or logic to religion or dead habit. I can see a few arguments like the ones below, and my rebuttals are included:

A rule is meant to be followed or changed - violating the rule is not an option... Fine, but then why is the supreme court agreeing to decide a plea to treat someone 6 months short of 18 years as an adult (Delhi rape). You can't have it both ways or as a matter of your convenience.

In most western or developed countries, the minimum age for marriage is 18 years... Not quite - for example in the United States, the law in some states is "minimum 18 years of age without parental consent". Notice how the language makes a difference. In some states a boy or girl of 16 years can marry with parents consent (colorado law).

India needs to end child marriage practice, so this kind of enforcement helps... They are barely scratching the surface, not making any difference and just being a pain to these laborers who are trying to find a safe home for the girls. The statistic is at least 47% girls are married before 18 years of age (UNICEF) and it drops to 18% at 15 years of age. So, really they need  to focus only on stopping the smaller percentage of below 16 years of age marriages or the unconsented 16 and 17 year old marriages (e.g., a 16 year old marrying a 40 year old, or the parents are marrying the girl off to repay a loan). Further India was probably at 100% child marriages (life expectancy was 35 years in 1947) and the 53% girls married at a later age now is not one bit due to police enforcement but through education, realization and social changes among many communities, middle and upper classes.

Many of these child marriage NGO organizations have acknowledged they get the tip offs only from unhappy parties who couldn't marry the bride (or the groom) and want to seek revenge or there is another love affair going on!

Child marriage could end  up in child pregnancy or child sex: Even in the less than 15 year old cases, the culture is that many of them stay with the parents until they are old enough to join the in-laws, so there isn't a child sex issue just because there was a child marriage. Granted there will be exceptions and victims, but there are so many parallels where we don't ban practices just because there are exceptions - we only make laws to deal with the exceptions. 



If the police, NGOs and other powerful organizations adopt a more comprehensive approach, like ensuring education, ensuring pay to the families, help with debt-trap, improve living conditions, influence the laws to be written precisely to address the right problems, then the problem will go away over time on its own. It happened that way with many communities, who also used to practice child marriage in the prior generations.

Lastly, there are many beyond 18 years of age, in their 20s or even 30s that aren't quite mature adults nor ready for marriage! So the legal age for marriage doesn't quite make sense, without a clause on the mental capacity of the individuals. Guy Kawasaki said something along these lines on the right age to marry - at any age, you are never too old to marry, but you could be too young to marry!

Hopefully we'll evolve right.

Gay Marriage - should it be legal?

Recent news is Gay marriage is illegal in California due to Proposition 8, and legal in Connecticut due to court ruling. Obviously, we wonder, should gay marriages be legal?

But, here is my rhetorical question - why should "marriage" be legal? Why should the law take positions on concept called marriage? Why should governments spend public funds issuing licenses, tracking who is "married" and so on? The answer is easy - taxes, benefits like medical insurance or social security, inheritance, immigration, liability such as spousal and child support and host other things are tied to "marriage". The religious believe marriage strengthens families and hence good for overall society, but that's not quite why governments are tracking marriages.

If that is the case, we should address the problem of social benefits, and not get caught up on the more religious notion of marriage. Why not let individuals form communities regardless of gender, regardless of gay or straight, and regardless of how many want to be together? For example, why can't two straight men who are just roommates, declare they are forming a community or household and get a license, so they can get tax benefits, be able to add an unemployed roommate to medical plan, allowed to make decisions during emergency etc. This will obviously strengthen the their well being. What if someone is living with a cousin and a grandmother? After all, if the idea is to strengthen society with people helping out one another, it should not matter if dependents are from a particular sex, have specific sexual orientation etc, or what relationships exactly can form a community. In fact, we don't restrict who can be together in a household, but just don't want to extend the typical benefits, possibly due to fear that it will be misused. In fact, we also enforce certain responsibilities such as child support, regardless of someone is married or not.

One thought I read somewhere is to issue marriage licenses for 7 years, and have people renew, if they are still together and value the relationship. Likewise, community or household licenses could be issued to any set of people, so they can avail themselves of benefits and share responsibility. Another example, in India, there is a legal concept of "Hindu United Family" to determine taxes, inheritance and benefits pertaining the patriarchal families which comprise of so many married couples in a large household as well as children, parents, grandparents, and potentially some older single uncles, aunts living in the same large household as well. A "Ration Card" that lists the names of people in the household is really the license to many other benefits - most people in India don't even apply or have a marriage license from the government! Truth is most of us are going to remain wedded, and live with our spouses, regardless of whether the government issues us a license or not.

I think there is a way to redefine the way we form these associations, and how we let the government and law deal with them, and not get caught up whether the check box should read bride & groom or bride & bride or whatever. Maybe we should just call everything a civil union and the problem will go away. I just don't think a proposition that we can't call marriage as a as civil union will gather support.

More on divorce - India and Spain

Two news items that caught my eye last week: 1) Parents in Spain faking divorce so their kids can get extra points to get into favorite schools (click here for news article) 2) The national commission for women in India wants to "save marriages" through conselling, now that they have strengthened major laws related to women (The Hindu 11 Apr 2008) .

If you have read my blog that divorce laws are poles apart you might find these interesting as well. Apparently in Spain, there is fast track divorce - you can apply for one and get it in 5 weeks! To fix some single parent issues, the government gives extra points to such kids, so they end up in the better schools. Now, parents who are together are using this scheme to get the best for their kid - apply for divorce, get the extra points for their kid, and then go for counseling. I don't agree with the approach, but it is amazing how different people are.

Now, across continents in India, they want to "save marriages" that are broken. The belief is only in extreme situations couples must divorce, young couples are breaking up over trivial issues, and women suffered in most cases. So, the police, the state and some third party mediators are being sensitized so tha laws are properly implemented, couples who have undergone domestic violence get into conciliation and settlement. My belief is that's a lot to chew for the government of a billion+ population. Spain, incidentally had pretty tough divorce laws until recently due to conservative christian culture, and now it all changed - the goal is to "save individuals" or "save individual freedoms", so even single parents can effectively bring up kids, single women can lead an individual and respectable lives on their own, instead of reconciling with domestic violence, settle and save the marriage.

Hope someone points out Spain to the Indian law makers.