Sat Ma­haraj

Part 2

It ap­pears that the on­ly time politi­cians be­come con­cerned with the age of mar­riage of the three most sta­ble re­li­gions in T&T is when the UNC per­son­nel hold the reigns of po­lit­i­cal pow­er. Un­der our very eyes, sex­u­al im­pro­pri­eties take place every day. We have a vi­brant me­dia that re­port the wrongs in the most vivid way, yet our po­lit­i­cal lead­ers pre­fer to ques­tion the re­li­gious groups that pro­vide sta­bil­i­ty to our na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty than deal with the na­tion­al cri­sis of moral de­cay that is de­stroy­ing our homes and fam­i­lies. The Hin­du Mar­riage Act, the Mus­lim Mar­riage Or­di­nance and the Or­isha Mar­riage Bill passed in 1997 per­mit mar­riages among its ad­her­ents. These re­li­gions sanc­tion mar­riages among its fol­low­ers at a younger age than what is re­gard­ed as the "age of ma­jor­i­ty" by the State.

Un­der the Hin­du Mar­riage Act, a male 18 and a fe­male 14 could get mar­ried, with parental con­sent. Un­der the Mus­lim Or­di­nance, mar­riage could take place with the male 14 and the fe­male 12, and un­der the Or­isha Mar­riage Bill at Sec­tion 12:2, it reads: "A mar­riage shall not be solem­nised by a mar­riage of­fi­cer if the hus­band (not be­ing a wid­ow­er) is un­der 18 years of age or the in­tend­ed wife (not be­ing a wid­ow) is un­der 16 years of age un­less the con­sent to the mar­riage of the par­ty who is un­der age by virtue of this sub­sec­tion has giv­en in ac­cor­dance with the fol­low­ing pro­vi­sions of this sec­tion, and the con- sent is here­by re­quired for the mar­riage of such par­ty un­der age." The sec­tion goes on to state that the fa­ther, the guardian or the moth­er may give con­sent to the un­der­age par­ty. If none is alive, con­sent may be giv­en by the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic.

It is in­ter­est­ing that when the PNM took over con­trol of the Gov­ern­ment and un­til it lost pow­er to the PP Gov­ern­ment, no at­tempt was made to stan­dard­ise the le­gal age of mar­riage which now per­mits a free­dom ac­cord­ing to the re­li­gious tra­di­tions of the var­i­ous groups. Now we have Sen­a­tor Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment, res­ur­rect­ing stan­dard­i­s­a­tion in mar­riage that has re­mained most­ly dor­mant as far as peo­ple of T&T are con­cerned. Min­is­ter St Rose-Greaves pre­ferred to in­ter­act with her aca­d­e­m­ic friends at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, rather than with peo­ple who ac­tu­al­ly prac­tise the con­cept of mar­riage ac­cord­ing to their re­li­gious be­liefs. Be­lat­ed­ly, she is hav­ing con­sul­ta­tions with the prac­ti­tion­ers and true be­liev­ers of mar­riage as a re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tion.

What the min­is­ter has not told the pop­u­la­tion is what plans she has put in place to deal with 11 and 12-year-old girl chil­dren who be­come preg­nant and pro­duce chil­dren with­out the need of le­gal sanc­tions or bless­ings. In oth­er words, Madam Sen­a­tor, what plans does your Gov­ern­ment have to deal with "child, who is mak­ing child?" The min­is­ter must tell the na­tion of any plans to build homes at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions across the coun­try to house and main­tain "child moth­ers." Does the min­is­ter have plans to pro­vide a state grant for up­keep of moth­er and child or will the min­is­ter pro­vide "day­care for the child" and send un­der­aged moth­ers back to school? The State can­not tam­per with the an­cient tra­di­tions with­out plans to sup­port the so­cial dis­lo­ca­tions. Many com­men­ta­tors have point­ed to dis­tricts in this coun­try where in­cest is preva­lent and where rude re­marks are heard from male guardians about 12-year-old girls. These are shock­ing re­mark that Madam Sen­a­tor and so­ci­ol­o­gist should in­ves­ti­gate and study.

Not on­ly are these sex­u­al be­hav­iours im­moral, they are il­le­gal, but the Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment has no com­ment to make. Do they pre­fer to build homes for un­wed chil­dren who have ba­bies? Does the min­is­ter plan to send the 12-year-old moth­er back to school or find a job for her or is she more con­cerned about a 12, 14 or 16-year-old get­ting mar­ried un­der the full bless­ing and sup­port of both sets of par­ents and the law? For the ben­e­fit of the read­ing pub­lic, I re­pro­duce the le­gal req­ui­sites of a valid Hin­du mar­riage:

(a) That each of the par­ties shall be­long to and pro­fess the Hin­du faith or re­li­gion;

(b) That both par­ties shall, as re­gards age, men­tal ca­pac­i­ty and oth­er­wise, be ca­pa­ble of con­tract­ing mar­riage;

(c) That the par­ties shall not be with­in the pro­hib­it­ed de­grees of con­san­guin­i­ty and affin­i­ty ac­cord­ing to the Hin­du law re­lat­ing to mar­riage;

(d) That the mar­riage shall be solem­nised by a mar­riage of­fi­cer in ac­cor­dance with the rites of the Hin­du re­li­gion and with the pro­vi­sions of this Act;

(e) That the par­ties un­der­stand­ing the na­ture of the con­tract, shall freely con­sent to mar­ry one an­oth­er in the pres­ence of the mar­riage of­fi­cer who solem­nis­es the mar­riage and shall sign or mark the cer­tifi­cate drawn up by the said of­fi­cer in ac­cor­dance with sec­tion 13;

(f) That the mar­riages shall be reg­is­tered in ac­cor­dance with this Act.

• Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha