Although the country’s legal age of marriage for women is 18, some 66 percent of women, who are now aged between 20 and 24, got married before the age of 18, said a recent Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS).
The survey, however, showed that over the past two decades, the percentage of women marrying before the legal age is declining gradually.
Among the women and men who are now aged between 20 and 49, 78 percent women were married before the age of 18 and 88 percent women married before the age of 20, while only five percent men were married before the age of 18 and 15 percent before the age of 20.
Of the men who are now aged between 25 and 54, only 17 percent married at or before their 20th birthday, and a little more than half married at or before the age of 25.
“It is really frustrating that the parents or guardians are not aware enough about the legal age of marriage. If this trend continues, the population will increase rapidly because those women have more fertility years as well as the risk of unwanted child that caused mal-nutrient and underweight babies and also caused for mother’s anemic diseases,” said MA Qayyum, director general of the Directorate of Family Planning, while talking to The Daily Star recently.
The survey also stated that men marry more than nine years later than women.
The median age at first marriage among men is 24.5 years compared to 15.3 years of women indicating a large age difference between husbands and wives.
Urban women aged between 25 and 49 tend to marry one year later than their rural counterparts.
The median age of marriage at the divisional level shows greater variation.
The median age of 16.4 years at first marriage for women who are now at the age group of 25-49 is the highest in Sylhet and 14.7 years is the lowest for those in Rajshahi and Khulna.
Women in Chittagong enter into marriage about one year later than women in Rajshahi and Khulna.
Level of education has a positive association with the median age at marriage.
For example, women who have completed secondary or higher education, marry two years later than those with no education.
Similarly, the median age at marriage increases with household wealth. Women from the highest wealth quintile marry two years later than those from the lowest wealth quintile.
The median age at first marriage for men also displays patterns and associations similar to those observed for women.
It shows that a difference of slightly more than one year in the median age at first marriage between urban men (26.2 years) and rural men (25 years) who are now at the age group 30-34.
The median age at marriage among men also varies at the divisional level.
Among the men aged between 30 and 34, the median age at first marriage for men is the highest in Sylhet and the lowest in Dhaka and Rajshahi.
As observed for women, men with lower level of education enter into marriage earlier than other men.
Men who have completed secondary or higher education marry four years later than those with no education and three years later than those with primary education.
Similarly, men from the highest wealth quintile marry later than those from the other quintiles.
The average median age at first birth is about 18 years except for women who are now aged 20-24 years indicating a slight increase in the age at first birth in recent years.
When contacted, former adviser to the caretaker government Advocate Sultana Kamal told this correspondent that the government should take steps to raise awareness about the legal age of marriage in remote areas where early marriage occurs frequently.
“There is no alternative to birth registration to prevent early marriage as in that case the Kazi or guardians will not be able to show false age for marriage,” said Advocate Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association.
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