Dynamics of Early Marriage of Girls among Meos of Mewat, Haryana

Abstract

The prevalence of the early marriage of girls has been widely documented
in many communities across the world. Although the detrimental effects
of this practice have been highlighted, the actual propelling factors and
opinions as well as experiences of the women who married young have
not received much attention. This paper presents a qualitative
phenomenological analysis, carried out through semi structured interviews
with 15 Meo women from rural Mewat, Haryana, India, who had an early
marriage. An attempt was made to capture their lived experiences through
dominant shared themes, which were identified following an idiographic
approach and analysed using a social constructionist framework