Marriage Pattern of Females in India During the Decade 1951-61

The extreme pattern of young age marriages for females in India is of great interest not only as a social phenomenon but because of its implications of future births and hence growth of population in India in relation to its economic development. In the absence of a compulsory marriage registration system in India, census and fragmentary surveys are the only sources to provide data on marriages. Agarwala (1962) provided a detailed picture of changing trends in age at marriage in India based on the proportion of 'single' females in different age groups as obtained from different censuses. Kumar (1967) recently has calculated the nuptiality rate for 'single' females in different age groups by using the distribution of the population by marital status obtained from the 1951 and 1961 censuses. However, for estimating the marriage probabilities from only one census for the 'single' females at different ages we need to know only their subsequent history. Knowledge on the conditions of those who are currently married or widowed, may not improve the estimates of marriage probabilities obtained from the proportion of singles in different age groups.