Child marriage, as they say is the process of marrying a girl or a boy below the age of 18. It is a process which is illegal in our country, yet there are places where it is considered as a ritual that’s been performed since generations.
I have a maid who’s been working at my house for a long time. One day she came to my place with half her face swollen. Her right eye had become small; she could hardly see anything from that eye. The thick skin of her face had now become thin. Thin like a balloon when inflated.
I asked her, “What happened to your face?”
She said, “Kuch nahi, bas aise hi chot lagi hai.” (Nothing, I just got hurt)
I understood that something serious had happened as it was very much visible.
I asked her again, to which she replied, “My husband beat me last night.”
Shockingly, I questioned her, “Why?”
She sat on my sofa, sobbing and wiping her tears with the end of her sari. Her voice was shaky. She couldn’t talk. I gave her a glass of water. She drank and said “I got married to him when I was 14 years old and he was 29.”
“Child marriage”, I thought.
She continued, “I didn’t know what marriage was. I even didn’t know how to drape a sari, serve food to elders or even talk in front of guests. I didn’t know where I was being sent.”
I listened to her trying to understand what her mind, brain and heart would have thought at that time. She continued, “We have been married for over 15 years now and my husband has a girlfriend with whom he stays. He comes home anytime to eat, drink or sleep. But whenever he comes, he humiliates me and scolds me in front of my kids. But yesterday he beat me, so hard that I fell unconscious for an hour. But he didn’t care. I didn’t expect him to.”
I asked her, “Why did he do so?”
She said, “I don’t know.”
With tears rolling down she said, “He usually beats me for no reason. When he fights with his friends or girlfriend he beats me. For all the silly reasons of the world I get beaten up.” She was still crying. Her eyes were red. I could see her both eyes becoming small. Small due to the tears that were rolling down.
She must be crying since last night, I thought.
Angrily, I asked, “Why don’t you go to the police?”
She was weak. I could see that. She looked down towards the ground and said, “I have two kids.”
I asked her “How old are they?”
She said, “Son is in 9th grade and daughter is in 5th grade.”
She continued, “I gave birth to my son when I was 15 years old. My menstruation cycle had just begun three months before I first conceived. Suddenly, for 4 months I didn’t menstruate and got pregnant. The doctor said I have a baby in my stomach. I was happy. 9 months later, the baby was born. It was the time I had first seen a baby coming out of my womb. However, I couldn’t feed him milk. I wasn’t capable of it. The baby was too weak. He was weighed just 0.5 kg and hence was kept in a glass box (incubator). I had 8 stitches. Such was the pain that I couldn’t eat, walk or even sleep and hence fell ill. Jaundice was what was detected.”
I was silent. Suddenly, everything around me paused. I couldn’t talk or speak anything. I could hear my heart beat loud.
I consoled her, gave her the courage to stand for herself. But she couldn’t. She still suffers. She still takes the pain. No one can blame her for it but the society she was born in.
There are many laws made by the Indian government against child marriage. But are these cases even filed? Who is responsible for these situations, the parents who are getting their child married or the child who’s getting married and doesn’t even know what’s happening?
Of course the first one, but why does it still exist in our society. Hopefully we will find the answer very soon, and get rid of this age old illegal ritual.
