In Bihar State of India Mean Age at first marriage is increasing After reversing the tradition of marrying before the legal age

Proportion of women marrying before the legal age in EAG states of India has been obtained from the data collected during Annual Health Survey, 2010.  This has been obtained for the currently married women in these states as well as for the women who married during 2007-09.  This is one of the important indicators having bearing on birth rates, and fertility of women.  Any advancement in this women’ marriage age, does effect the population dynamics of the region/states and hence on its development. There are eight least developed EAG states and Bihar is one of them, on which the Government of India has the focus so that their development would actually lead in the advancement of India as a whole as the same is dependent significantly on these states, the movement of the said indicator has been discussed in case of one of the most vulnerable state in this respect.

In Bihar state, about 55% of currently married women age 20-24 years got married before the legal minimum age of 18 and about 42 percent of men age 25-29 years got married before the legal minimum age of 21 as per recent large scale survey.  The same for urban Bihar are around 45 percent and about 30 percent respectively.

The proportion of girls marrying during 2007-09 below legal age is 20 percent. In urban areas the corresponding percentage is only 11.0 percent.

The customary marriages under the legal age are seen to have been significantly reduced from 55% to 20% which is about one-third.

The traditional problem of marrying the daughters before the legal age of 18 years is still quite significant in Bihar.  The districts of Bihar where the problem is more acute are: Jamui (51%), Nawada (51%), Gaya (44%), Nalanda (37%), Sheikhpura (37%) and Lakhisarai (36%).

As per NFHS -3, the median age at first marriage is 15 years among women age 20-49 years and 20 years among men age 25-49. On average men marry four years later than women. But the mean age at marriage for female is 19.7 years and for male as 23.4 years as per recent held Annual Health survey (AHS). In urban Bihar the respective mean ages for women and men are 21.1 years and 25.6 years respectively.

he following table has compared the mean age at marriage for both the males and females for Bihar State:

Mean Age at  Marriage for Females	Mean Age at  Marriage for Males	Gap in Mean Age at Marriage
19.7	23.4	3.7

It can be inferred that most of the females of Bihar are marring around their late nineties or early twenties.  The gap should be least possible as it has been seen that females live longer than males on the average.

Over the years, the mean age at marriage has been advancing in both rural as well in urban areas, if one compares the presented two data sets.  It has been also observed that urban areas are witnessing late marriages than their rural counter parts and gap is comparatively more.