Chapter 2

Literature Review

2.1 Introduction
In the literature review, attempt should be made to define early marriage for better
comprehension, to review the contest of early marriage in Bangladesh, early marriage and early
conception as a development challenge and the key issues surrounding marriage.

2.2 What is early marriage?

The term “early marriage “ is used to refer to both formal marriages and informal unions in
which a girl lives with a partner as if married before age of 18.
For UNIPA(2006) early marriage ,also known as child marriage, is defined as “any marriage
carried out below the age of 18 years, before the girl is physically and physiologically,
psychologically ready to shoulder the responsibilities of marriage and childbearing. Child
marriage, on the other hand, involves either one or both spouses being children and may take
place with or without formal registration, and under civil, religious or customary laws. In a 1989
study by world health organization, it was found that Bangladesh, 25% of 14 years old girls were
married, in Nepal, 35% of 15 years old were married. In southeast Asia, 24%, in Africa 44% and
in America,16% of women under 18 years were married (WHO,1989).
The lack of an overarching definition of early marriage in international conventions has
generated some debates. Some scholars and actives, argue instead of looking for a universal age
at which girls and boys should not marry, the focus should be put instead on eliminating the
unwanted effects of early marriage.
For example, some commentators suggested that a universal age of marriage is not appropriate,
in part because societies have different understanding of what it means to be a child as well as
different socio-economic and cultural realities.

2.2.1 Context of early marriage

While more women are now marrying at later ages, in many regions, early marriage remains the
norm. overall, 20-50 % of women in developing countries are married before the age of 18.
Early motherhood has been the subject of a growing of studies, research projects and
intervention programs in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi women in general marry at a much earlier age
than their non-Bangladeshi counterparts, leading to early pregnancies. For example Many
Bangladeshi women marry early, and many marry before the legal age of 18 years. This practice
has been associated with a higher risk of health and medical morbidities, and also early
pregnancy with higher pre- and postnatal complications. The aim of this study was to determine
the prevalence, and factors associated with, child marriage among Bangladeshi women using
multiple binary logistic regression analysis of data from the BDHS-2011. Further analysis on the
trend of age at first marriage was performed with additional data sets from previous surveys. The

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mean and median of ages at first marriage of Bangladeshi women in 2011 were 15.69±2.97 and
15.00 years, respectively. A remarkably high percentage (78.2%) married before the age of 18;
of these, 5.5% married at a very early age (before 13 years of age).

2.2.2 Early marriage as a developmental challenge

Early marriage stands in direct conflict with the objectives of the millennium Development
Goals. It threats the achievement of the first six goals respectively, eradicating extreme poverty
and hunger, achieving universal primarily education, promoting gender equality and empowering
women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS , malaria
and other diseases. When the relationship between age at marriage and development is
examined, it becomes clear that later marriage is a precondition for the attainment of desired
development related goals. These can include completion of school, acquisition of training for
employment, and attainment of the skills and information related to the roles of citizen, family
member, and consumer that are of a successful adulthood, in many countries child marriage is
linked with poverty. This is because it affects particularly the poorest in the population and helps
to reinforce cycles of poverty. Early marriage is associated with high fertility. However, one
reason for a poverty trap is a demographic trap, when impoverished families choose to have lots
of children, such as high fertility rates in one generation, therefore, tend to lead to impoverished
of the children and high fertility in the following generation as well.

2.3 key issues surrounding early marriage (consequences)

They tend to be a relationship between age of marriage, level of, poverty, and health. poorer, less
educated girls tend to marry earlier and tend also to have poorer health. The following
consequences tend to flow from early marriage:

2.3.1 Health and Related outcomes

Early child bearing and unwanted pregnancies: young girls who get married will most likely
be forced into having sexual intercourse with their, usually much older, husbands. This has
severe negative health consequences as the girl is often not psychologically, physically and
sexually mature. Early marriage is associated with early child bearing. Young married girls are
under tremendous pressure to prove their fertility in the first year of marriage. Girls, who marry
young, inevitably have children early, and have many children, because their knowledge of
contraception is poor and their power to negotiate its use is weak.
Domestic violence and sexual abuse: as young girls are often married age difference tends to
men who are much older than themselves, the reinforce the powerlessness of the girl, who is thus
at greater risk of abuse and less likely to assert herself. Young married girls are more likely to be
beaten or threatened and more likely to believe that a husband might sometimes be justified in
beating his wife. Women who believe that are more likely to have been married before age 18
than those who believe that is never justification.
High maternal mortality and morbidity: the world health organization estimates that the risk
of death following pregnancy is twice as great for women between 15 and 19 years than for those
between the ages of 20 and 24. The maternal mortality rate can be up to five times higher for
girls aged between 10 and 14 than for women of about twenty years of age. Pregnant adolescents

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face far more health problems than older women, particularly single girls who often receive less
prenatal care (WHO report, 2009).
Increased Risk of Contracting Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS: Fear of HIV
infection, for example, has encouraged men in some African countries to seek young virgin –
and therefore uninfected –partners. On top of pregnancy-related complications, young married
girls are also at high risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. Young
married girls are even at higher risk because their older husbands may already be infected in
previous sexual relationships. Furthermore, the age difference between the girl and the husband
and her low economic status make it almost impossible for the girl to negotiate safe sex or
demand fidelity. Early marriage usually means that young girls enter marriage without adequate
information about critical sexual intercourse, contraception, sexually transmitted diseases,
pregnancy and childbirth.

2.3.2 Lack of power

It is hypothesized that women who are married as children have less decision making power than
women whose marriage is delayed until adulthood. They don’t have ability to make decision on
their own health care, contraception, household budget, daily household purchases, visit to
family and friends etc, (UNICEF, 1996). They have little power in relation to their husbands and
in-laws.

2.4 Hypothesis
After reviewing the above literature and achieving the purpose of this study, five alternative
hypothesis have been developed:
Hypothesis 1: Respondents education has significant impact on early marriage
Hypothesis 2 Fathers education has significant impact on early marriage
Hypothesis 3: Husbands education has significant impact on early marriage
Hypothesis 4: Family monthly income has significant impact on early marriage
Hypothesis 5: Religion has significant impact on early marriage

2.5 Operationalization of Key Concept

2.5.1 Marriage
Microsoft Encarta 2009 defines ‘marriage’ as the following
Legal relationship between spouses: A legal recognizes relationship, established by civil or
religious ceremony between two people who intended to live together as sexual and domestic
partners.
Specific marriage relationship: A married relationship between two people, or a somebody’s
relationship with his or her spouse.
Joining in wedlock: The joining together in wedlock of two people Marriage ceremony: the
ceremony in which two people are joined together formally in wedlock.
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2.5.2 Early

It is defined as follows
During first stage: At or near the beginning of a period of time, process, or sequence of event.
Soon: without delay or before long (Microsoft Encarta 2009).
2.5.3 Development: It involves progression, movement, and advance towards something better.
It is improvement on the material and nonmaterial aspects of life and it involves action, reaction
and motion (Onah and Okoli, 2010). It is also an incident that causes a situation to change or
progress and the process of changing and becoming larger, stronger, or more impressive,
successful, or advanced or of casing or somebody or something to change in that way.

2.5.4 Implication: It is an indirect suggestion; something that is implied or involved as a result

or natural consequences of something else. To me, it is a negative consequences or repercussion
( i.e unintended outcome of an action) that comes out of something else.

2.6 Specific literature related to this study

The relationship between age at first marriage and education is the most powerful and consistent
documented literature. Most of the studies recognized the importance of education to increase the
female age at marriage. Hirschman (1985) initiated his study with two research questions. One
was, whether early family formation was affected by some premarital socio-economic roles and
the other was to find out the reason of deviations about the initial family formation in Asian
populations. He also overviewed a trend of early family formation across the Asian countries
using the mean age at first marriage and mean age at first birth. Finally, he found that education
was the most powerful determinants in delaying marriage.
Choe et al. (2005) utilized information from both male and female adolescents in their study
“Early Marriage and Early Motherhood in Nepal”. They applied proportional hazard model and
logistic regression model to estimate covariates of early marriage, early motherhood and delayed
consummation of marriage in Nepal. They discovered that education along with parental
education has a highly significant effect on early marriage. The study explained that attaining the
level of education increases the age at first marriage.
Field and Ambrus(2008) used data in their study “Early marriage, Age of Menarche, and Female
Schooling Attainment in Bangladesh” from a rural region of Bangladesh named “Matlab Health
and Socioeconomic survey 1996”.They separated the causal impact of timing of marriage using
the instrumental variable named „age of menarche‟. They found that higher literacy rate and
preventive health services were responsible for delaying marriage by using IV (Instrumental
variable) estimates and OLS( Ordinary Least Square) estimates.
Kumchulesi et al. (2011) examined in their study “Factors affecting age at first marriage in
Malawi” that early marriage was influenced by high fertility, high mortality and low
contraceptive use. For this study, they used 2000 and 2004 Malawi Demographic and Health
Survey data. Univariate, bivariate and hazard proportional model were used to find out the
relationship between age at first marriage and selected socioeconomic factors. They found that

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age, education, religion, region and ethnicity are the most influential factors of age at first
marriage in Malawi. Sah et al. (2014) revealed in their study “Factors Affecting Early Age
Marriage in Dhankuta Municipality, Nepal” that child marriage was associated with low
education and low economic status by using chi-square test.

2.7 Conclusion
From the above literature review it is noticable that the main factors that affect the age at first
marriage or early marriages are lack of education of parents and lower economic condition of the
family. Different research have been done on early marriage and early conception but in
Bangladesh context it is highly true that both the term early marriage and early conception are
affected by lower education , insufficient economical condition and social status.