A new health survey conducted by the Office of Registrar General has revealed that more boys than girls are getting married before the legal age of 21 years. The survey has also revealed that every fourth girl in rural Rajasthan and every fifth girl in Bihar and Jharkhand are below the legal age of 18 years at marriage.

Whereas the Mean marriage age of females differs from 19.7 in Rajasthan to 22 years in Uttarakhand. For males, the mean marriage age is 22.2 in Rajasthan and a maximum of 27.6 in Assam.

The Annual Health Survey was conducted by the Office of Registrar General, India in all the 284 districts (as per 2001 Census) in eight Empowered Action Group States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Rajasthan, besides Assam for a three- year period, 2007 to 2009, carried out in 2010 and 2011.

The survey also reveals for the first time that a woman on an average gives birth to more than three children in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Rajasthan, with the highest of 5.9 children reported in Shrawasti district of Uttar Pradesh.These nine states account for about 48 per cent of the total population, 59 per cent of total births, 70 per cent of Infant Deaths, 75 per cent of Under-5 Deaths and 62 per cent of Maternal Deaths in the country.

Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, C Chandramouli said, that the states are the high focus ones in view of their relatively higher fertility and mortality rate.

The Rajya Sabha has taken up discussion on the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010. Piloting the bill, the Law and Justice Minister, Mr Salman Khursheed said the proposed amendment aims at mitigating the financial hardship of the wife if she happenes to be the respondent in respect of a petition for grant of decree of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage. He said provision has also been made to restrict grant of a decree of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of the marriage if the court is satisfied that adequate provision for the maintenance of children has not been made consistently with the Responding to this the Leader of Opposition, Mr Arun Jaitley the law will be a disaster for Indian women as there is no clarity in respect of providing maintenance for her and children The debate remained inconclusive.