Abstract

Age at first marriage of women has been increasing in Bangladesh but marriage before 18 years for girls still prevails in Bangladesh especially in rural areas. This paper examines various factors of violation of legal age at first marriage of women in Bangladesh. The population of the study is comprised of individual level married women of different areas in Bangladesh. A sample of 350 married women has been constructed through purposive sampling technique and surveyed through structured questionnaire. Research data have been analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics as one-way ANOVA and Chi-square correlation. In one-way ANOVA analysis, it is found that mean age at first marriage of women is 16.25 years in rural and 18.46 years in urban. The findings of this study also reveal that some demographic, socio-economic, and psychological factors like women’s education, occupation, place of residence, husband’s education, occupation, consent to marry, parents’ education, psychological maturity, economic condition, age and religion lead the women to violation of legal age at first marriage in Bangladesh. In chi-square correlation analysis, it is found that all of the factors except women religion have significant impacts on age at first marriage of women. The findings of this study will help the concerned parties for further studies and policy formulation.