In this short piece, I offer some reflections about what defines coming of age for girls in India, a debate whose social foundations became evident in my pilot interviews.
The objective of my study is to understand how young brides (16-19) in India navigate the gendered dynamics of the household and the larger context of kinship, caste and community to which these dynamics are inextricably linked, to access reproductive healthcare. This is an understudied aspect of reproductive health in India, especially with respect to the study population. My study sets the research problem within the context of high maternal mortality rates, a highly visible aspect of reproductive health across India, but particularly in Bihar, my study site. Bihar is a state with some of the poorest reproductive health indicators coupled with some of the highest rates of early marriage and consequent pregnancy.
According to the National Family Health Survey of India, 2020, about 40% of women currently aged 20-24, were married before the age of 18 in Bihar. Not all of these are forced marriages, many marry of their own volition, due to a dearth of educational and economic opportunities, or to escape homes where they are not valued. The law that prohibits child marriage is often used by families as a tool to discipline consenting inter-caste and inter-faith couples, rather than to curb marriages that young girls are forcefully pushed into. But despite the circumstances of the marriage, married minors (under 18) are enmeshed in a unique position in both law and society. Under Indian laws, marriages involving minors are not void (they’re only voidable) but all sexual acts involving minors are considered sexual abuse, irrespective of marital status, and more importantly, irrespective of consent. Likewise, the government’s health surveys classify 15-49 year olds as married women (of reproductive age) but maternity benefits are restricted to women aged 19 and older, perhaps as an ill-calculated deterrent against child marriage.
The working title of my study is ‘The effects of household dynamics on married adolescent girls’ access to reproductive healthcare in Bihar, India’ and one of the key themes it explores in its examination of access is decision-making. At this point, several terms are under review: ‘effects’ could imply causation; ‘reproductive health’ could miss sexual health out; ‘dynamics’ cannot be transliterated to Hindi, the language in which the data is being collected, and; ‘adolescent girls’ could infantilise the study participants. The last dilemma was quite clearly and incidentally addressed by one of the pilot participants.
The pilot was designed as an exercise where the participants would discuss and assess the study objectives and methods. In one of the feedback sessions, I asked the participant if my position as an unmarried woman (among other markers of identity) impacted her responses, as I may not have the experiences, and hence, the empathy that she could get from a married woman. I asked this question because women are commonly asked if they are married in both professional and social settings in India, when they are not wearing obvious markers of marriage. On three different past projects, I have been asked why not, when, and even given strong advice against marriage! None of the pilot participants asked me about my marital status this time, although one of them later remarked that she thought I was married, and another one said that she wondered about it.
To go back to the question that I asked to understand the participant’s perception of me as the researcher, and more broadly, to understand if gender is enough common ground to ease into conversations on women’s health, it instead gave me the answer to what marks maturity for girls, age or marital status? Tarana*, who was about 6-7 years younger than me, and had been married at 17, said that she was comfortable speaking to me about reproductive health and household dynamics of the marital household because: “one day, soon, you too will go from being a girl to being a woman.” What Tarana implied was reaffirmed in the focus group discussion where participants referred to married adolescents as women and unmarried adolescents of the same age as girls.
Needless to say, it is not merely a matter of the appropriate term to use but of the influence it has on the themes and concepts used in the study. Women’s decision-making has frequently been studied through the lens of autonomy, which South Asian researchers have critically examined in the context of strong (desirable or undesirable) community ties. The pilot participants often described decision-making as a collective process, albeit with power dynamics involved, and some argued that a 16-year old is rarely going to have the wherewithal to make an informed decision about her reproductive health by herself, and would rather seek support from her family. Subsequent interviews and focus groups discussions will explore how women understand autonomy, and what role age, gender and affinal relationships play in the assignment and negotiation of decision-making power within the marital household.
The recently concluded pilot was carried out in partnership with Project Potential, a Bihar-based NGO, and supported by the Phil Strong Memorial Prize awarded by the British Sociological Association.
*Pseudonym used to maintain anonymity.
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