Resumen

FRANCAVILLA, Domenico. Family law reforms in India: Child marriage between traditional Hindu law and State intervention. Rev. Derecho Privado [online]. 2012, n.23, pp.13-32. ISSN 0123-4366.

Abstract The article analyses the evolution of Indian law on child marriages by focusing on selected aspects of traditional Hindu laws, colonial intervention and legal reforms after Independence. The article aims at highlighting the interaction between the different sources from which Hindu law emerges and conflicts occurring between official law and non-official law. On this basis, the article will try to explain how modernization of Hindu law has had to deal with a resistance that has resulted in a peculiar separation between private law and criminal law regimes of child marriages. In fact, they have been punished under criminal law but deemed as valid under private law till the Child Marriage Prohibition Act of 2006. Finally, the article will discuss several problems concerning the effectiveness in the Indian context of the new rules on child marriages introduced in 2006.

Palabras clave : marriage; Hinduism; reforms; invalidity; personal laws; women's rights; children's rights.

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