Abstract
By convention, women's early marriage is considered a sociocultural decision sensitive to factors acting during adolescence such as poverty, early menarche, and less education. Few studies have examined broader risk factors in the natal household prior to marriage. We investigated whether biosocial markers of parental investment through the daughters' life-course were associated with early marriage risk in rural India. We used an evolutionary perspective to interpret our findings. A prospective cohort recruited mothers at preconception. Children were followed from birth to age 21 years. Multivariable logistic regression models estimated odds ratios of marrying early (<19 years) associated first with wealth, age at menarche and education, and then with broader markers of maternal phenotype, natal household characteristics, and girls' growth trajectories. Models adjusted for confounders. Of 305 girls, 71 (23%) had married early. Early married girls showed different patterns of growth compared to unmarried girls. Neither poverty nor early menarche predicted early marriage. Girls' non-completion of lower secondary school predicted early marriage, explaining 19% of the variance. Independent of girls' lower schooling, nuclear household, low paternal education, shorter gestation, and girls' poor infant weight gain were associated with marrying early, explaining in combination 35% of the variance. Early marriage reflects "future discounting," where reduced parental investment in daughters' somatic and educational capital from early in her life favors an earlier transition to the life-course stage when reproduction can occur. Interventions initiated in adolescence may occur too late in the life-course to effectively delay women's marriage.
Highlights
Marriage fundamentally links together inequity and disadvantage with many aspects of adolescent, maternal, and child health, as well as having implications for women's autonomy and education (Godha et al, 2013; Goli et al, 2015; Raj et al, 2014)
We developed a conceptual framework to look beyond the “conventional” risk factors of poverty, early menarche, and less education to investigate whether maternal (F0) phenotype and natal household characteristics, and the daughter's (F1) own developmental trajectories were associated with early marriage (Figure 1)
Our results show that early marriage, often perceived as a sociocultural decision based on circumstances during adolescence and driven by poverty, early menarche, and lower education, is associated with a range of biosocial factors assessed from before birth through the daughter's life-course
Summary
Marriage fundamentally links together inequity and disadvantage with many aspects of adolescent, maternal, and child health, as well as having implications for women's autonomy and education (Godha et al, 2013; Goli et al, 2015; Raj et al, 2014). Early reproduction is associated with maternal mortality, under-nutrition, and morbidity (Fall et al, 2015; Nguyen et al, 2019). These factors adversely affect the survival, health, and well-being of the generation, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage (Chari et al, 2017; Finlay et al, 2011). In India, where our study is based, despite reductions in early marriage in the past decade (Beattie et al, 2019; IIPS, ICF, 2017; MacQuarrie & Juan, 2019), 41% of women aged 20–24 years were still married by 18 years in 2016, with higher rates in rural than urban populations (43% vs 32%) and among poorer more than wealthier households (55% vs 23%) (Scott et al, 2021)
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