Child Marriage — M.K. Gandhi

Gandhi was married at thirteen, to a bride roughly his own age, in a wedding arranged by two families to save the cost of holding three ceremonies separately. He tells this story on himself, without softening it, in a chapter of his autobiography called simply “Child Marriage.” It reads less like a memoir and more like a witness statement against a practice he lived through before he ever had the standing to object to it.

In two minutes

In this chapter of his autobiography, Gandhi records his own marriage at the age of thirteen as an act of confession rather than nostalgia, condemning child marriage as a practice with no moral defence, driven by family convenience and social custom rather than the welfare of the children it was imposed on.

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