The origin of State-enforced marriage age is historically from two sources. The Church wanted to erode the power of clans, and manorialism, which wanted to delay the marriage age of serfs. This got secularized into today's "liberal" push for state dictating the marriage age.

Church "religion" has been in conflict with "tradition." Traditions are from human beings, decentralized. The claim of religion is it comes from the "One God." Religion centralizes power, dictates to communities. Same idea turns into "constitutional law" which overrides tradition

Not only in India, all over the world puberty was the age of marriage. For thousands of years. Have human beings changed biologically? The atrocity literature on this comes from the same origins which I'm starting to study. https://twitter.com/CorbettCornell2/status/989840016498155522

Per the UN, in 146 countries, girls younger than 18 can marry with the consent of parents. Not in India. Laws driven by colonial shame hold that Indian parents are incapable of good decisions and the patriarchal state must civilize them.

Indian Police, egged by FCRA-NGOs, is jailing 100s of tribal youth for "rape" under POCSO for marrying under 18. They could now get death for following their customs for what is legal in 146 countries. Are these "rapists"? Have we gone mad?
@narendramodi http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/a-tradition-that-lands-tribal-youth-in-jail/article8245964.ece

Every changing scientific "theories" cannot be the basis of criminalizing society. The presumption that the state knows better than the parents and teens is deeply flawed. What is worse is to use that to lock people up.
https://twitter.com/NishkaK/status/989855295584309248

Lol. Apparently yhe prefrontal cortex develops in 146 countries but not in India. The kind of nonsense we push to justify colonial oppressive laws and the unique need to civilize Indians. https://twitter.com/knowselfspirit/status/989866601510912000

It is a pity that Indians, of all, fall into the trap of binary logic and the excluded middle. When I investigate why teen marriage is criminalized in India but not elsewhere, it does not mean I am *for* teen marriage. The question is role of the State. https://twitter.com/Anushagjw/status/989874584605224960

My detailed article on the question of marriage age.

https://www.manushi.in/gender-justice/ill--advised-move-to-further-raise-marriageable-age-of-girls-