Eliminating Child Marriage in India: A Backdoor Approach to Alleviating Human Rights Violations

Despite its illegality, child marriage occurs throughout the Indian landscape. In her book, Child Marriage in India: Socio-legal and Human Rights Dimensions, Jaya Sagade examines the prevalence of child marriage among India’s various cultures and its impact on the human rights of young women. Sagade asserts that, notwithstanding minimal legislative efforts, the Indian government has not met the obligations set forth in the international human rights conventions that the country has ratiaed. Sagade asserts that the Indian government must not only work diligently to change the nation’s views on child marriage, but must also legislate more cohesively to prohibit the practice. This Book Review takes Sagade’s human-rights-based proposals a step further and suggests that, in a country reluctant to release longstanding traditions, addressing the Indian tax system and dowry laws will provide a more practical, anancial incentive for eliminating the practice of child marriage. People in [India] take great pleasure in [child] marriage. . . . The little bit of a woman, the [child] bride, clad in red silk. Drums are beating and men, women and children are running in order to have a glimpse of that lovely face. From time to time she breaks forth into little ravishing smiles. She looks like a lovely doll.1 * Staff Writer, Boston College Third World Law Journal (2005–2006). 1 Charting Cultural Nationalism, Hindu, Aug. 19, 2001, available at www.thehindu. com/thehindu/2001/08/19/stories/1319017k.htm (discussing how 19th Century “cultural nationalists invested the institution of child marriage with both beauty and sentiment”).