SC declines to entertain plea on uniform marriage age for men, women

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea seeking to equalise the legal age of marriage for men and women. A bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud refused to entertain the petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. The bench said it could not enact law and one should not perceive that the Supreme Court is the exclusive custodian of the Constitution but parliament is also a custodian.
The court was hearing Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay’s plea seeking uniformity in the minimum age of marriage for men and women. The petitioner has submitted that the limit of 18 years for a woman, while it is 21 for a man, amounts to discrimination. The petitioner has mentioned that more than 125 countries worldwide have a uniform marriage age. He further added that a higher minimum age would ensure “more autonomy to women in every sense”.
He has further said that it is a social reality that women are expected (and often also pressured) to beget children immediately after marriage and also forced to take up household chores per their stereotypical family roles. This harms their educational and economic pursuits and often impinges on their reproductive autonomy as well, the plea said.