Majority Of Women In Odisha Marry After 21, 3.7% By 18 Yrs

Bhubaneswar: A majority of women in Odisha tied the nuptial knot after the age of 21 years, while the average age of marriage in the state stood at 22, reports said on Thursday.

Around 58 per cent of women in the state got married after attaining the age of 21 years against 70.5 per cent in the country as a whole. Similarly, the proportion of women who were married by the age of 18 years was around 3.7 per cent in the state, while it was over 1.9 per cent for the country as a whole, a TOI report quoting government data said.

Around 38.3 per cent of women in Odisha were married between the age of 18 and 20 years. In the country as a whole, an average of 27.6 per cent of women in the same age group got married.

The new data showed that the situation in Odisha was in sharp contrast to that in neighbouring West Bengal and Jharkhand where a majority of women were married by the age of 21 years. In the country as a whole, nearly 30 per cent of women got married before 21 years of age.