Sexual consent and age of marriage: How far has Bangladesh society progressed?

When women had full rights over their bodies is a matter of historical research. Nowhere in the ancient scriptures do women have the right to control their bodies. Although some of the provisions were different from the previous ones, its difference was not in favor of women.

What does 'woman' mean? Although visible differences between boys and men have been observed since ancient times, human efforts to separate women from children have been very recent.

From ancient times to the end of the twenty-first century, women mean women of any age. Although many laws define the term neonatal, child, etc., the age of a woman is zero, but she is practically a woman. Because even if she is a child, a woman can be married, she can be married, she can be traded or even politics. Now the question may arise or not?

Yes, yes. When the marriage of the unborn child can be given. In the case of marriage, the age of a woman can be only zero, below zero it can also be negative. At one time no one even thought about the consent of women in marriage. There is no doubt that it is done seriously even in modern times. Because she is a woman.

In ancient and medieval times, the age of sexual consent of a woman was generally determined by her family or clan. Although the custom of taking menstruation as proof of a woman's adulthood is universal, the practice of marrying a woman even before menstruation is prehistoric. In many societies of the world and even in many modern religions, the best age for marriage of a woman is determined before menstruation.

In many countries, state law criminalizes child marriage, but does not declare it illegal. That is, if a minor is married or given in marriage, the husband or all concerned may be punished. But even after the punishment, the minor will remain the wife of the husband and under the penal code, his sexual act will not be considered as rape unless the minor woman complains.

The age of sexual consent for women was first determined in the world by the Westminster Act of 1265 in England. In 1265, the age of sexual consent or marriage was 10 years under that law. This age was 13 in 185. And it was increased to 17 in 185.

Before 1285 there was no law on this. Then women of any age could be married. They could also have sex. It took the British about 600 years to increase the age of marriage by three years. It took only ten years to extend his next three years. However, they did not feel the need to do more than the age of sexual consent. They also set the age of consent at 18 under the latest Sex Offenses Act of 2003.

In 1791, the first French constitution set the age of sexual consent for women at seven years. In contemporary Europe, however, the age of sexual consent was not more than 12 years in other progressive countries. Although all the modern states of the world have now raised the age of sexual consent for women from 14 to 18, the world society has not yet been freed from the antiquity of thought. In some societies, women are forced to engage in sex at an early age for the sake of poverty and security, and there are many societies in which minors are forced to engage in sex according to religious rules.

In ancient or medieval Bengal, there were no specific rules on women's sexual consent or age of marriage. At one time in this country it was customary to marry unborn children. The age of consent for sexual intercourse was first fixed at 10 years in the Penal Code of 180. However, setting this age was only for determining sexual consent due to rape. There was no provision in this code regarding the age of marriage, not yet. However, thirty years later the Penal Code was amended and in 1891 the age of sexual consent was raised to 12 years. Thirty-five years later, in 1925, it was raised to 14 years in the Penal Code of Bangladesh, which is still intact.

According to the Bangladesh Penal Code, if a woman under the age of 14 has sexual intercourse with a man, even if it is consensual, it will be considered rape. However, there was no age limit on marriage under that law. If a wife of only 13 years of age had filed a rape complaint against her husband, it would have been taken into account, not otherwise.

ভারত উপমহাদেশে বাল্য বিবাহ নিরোধ আইন পাশ হয়েছিল ১৯২৯ সালে যেখানে নারীর বিবাহের বয়স নির্ধারণ করা হয়েছিল ১৫ বছর ও ছেলেদের ১৮ বছর। কিন্তু ঐ সময় মুসলমান ধর্মালম্বীদের  জোর আপত্তির মুখে পড়ে আইনটি। শেষ পর্যন্ত ১৯৩৭ সালে এ আইনে বিয়ের বয়সের বাধ্যবাধকতা থেকে মুসলিমদের বাদ দেওয়া হয়। অর্থাৎ তখন বিয়ের ব্যাপারে মুসলিমরা তাদের ধর্মীয় আইনের অধীনে যায় যেখানে মেয়েদের বিবাহের বয়সের ক্ষেত্রে সুনির্দিষ্ট কোনো বয়স উল্লেখ নেই। তবে যৌন সম্মতির সীমা হিসেবে মেয়েদের প্রথম ঋতুবর্তী হওয়াকেই ধরে নেওয়া হয় যা সর্বনিম্ন সাত বছরও হতে পারে।

Events of the late nineteenth century. Eleven-and-a-half-year-old wife of Harimohan Maiti, Phulmani, died of excessive bleeding due to sexual intercourse. Although Fulmoni was eleven and a half years old, her husband was thirty-five years old. The incident received widespread publicity. The English government was embarrassed not by the country but by the advanced society abroad. Harimohan was tried for killing his wife. However, it is not a case of negligent murder, rape or sexual intercourse with the consent of the wife.

In the light of this incident, the 'Age of Consent Act' was enacted which made rape of a girl under the age of twelve a national crime. This law also applies to girls' wives. However, the priests of the two Hindu and Muslim religions of India are opposed to this law. Because in any Hindu-Muslim religion there was no plague of sexual consent of women. Hindu women were religiously instructed to send their husbands home before menstruation. And the urge of the Muslims is the original belief.

However, before 1929, people of any religion in India had no restrictions on child marriage. So our great men who gave their lives for the prevention of child marriage and widow marriage were also victims of child marriage at an early age. For example, Rabindranath's grandfather Debendranath Tagore married an 8-year-old girl at the age of 14. Although Rabindranath got married at the age of 22. But at that time his wife was 11 years old. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was married at the age of eleven. His wife was only 5 years old.

The news of the passage of the Child Marriage Prohibition Act by the British government caused a sickening frenzy of child marriage in the then rural India. Before the law was enacted, millions of child marriages were held in Bengal for fear of falling under it. Marriage was even arranged by determining the sex probability of the unborn child from the infant. According to the 1931 census, the number of girl brides stood at 3.2 million to 5.5 million.

The number of child brides under the age of five almost quadrupled to eight lakh two thousand. At that time, the mother had to ride in a palanquin with her daughter to reach the groom's house.

However, the age of marriage and the age of consent to sexual intercourse are not the same thing. The age of consent for sexual intercourse is not the age of marriage for a woman under the law of Bangladesh. Under the Prevention of Violence against Women and Children Act, the age of consent for sexual activity of women is 18 years, which is only two years more than the definition of the Penal Code. However, according to the Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2017, if a woman wants to consent to marriage, she must be at least 18 years old.

But regardless of the age of the woman in the law, in reality the consideration of the age of the woman in the case of consent to sexual intercourse is always being violated. Even in 2020, Nur Nahar, a 14-year-old girl from Kalia village in Tangail's Basail upazila, died of excessive bleeding after her husband had sex with such an underage girl. When Nur Nahar got married to 35-year-old Rajib Khan, a foreigner from Fulki Paschim Para of the same upazila, her genitals started bleeding after the marriage. Nur Nahar died on October 24 while undergoing treatment for hemorrhage.

Prehistoric debates over the age of child marriage and sexual consent are still going on in many countries around the world, including Bangladesh. Didn't get it. Hundreds of years of effort may have raised some awareness in our society, but we have to go a long way to achieve the standards of a modern civilized society.