When it comes to marriage, what age do you usually want to get married? In fact, according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), it is said that most young people in Indonesia marry for the first time at the age of 19-21!
Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows that 33.76% of youth in Indonesia will record the age of first marriage in the range of 19-21 years in 2022. Then, as much as 27.07% of youth in the country will have the age of first marriage at 22-24 years . There were also 19.24% of youths who married for the first time when they were 16-18 years old.
When viewed by gender, the age of first marriage for young men and women certainly has differences, where men tend to enter their first age older than women.
In detail, 35.21% of young men had their first marriage when they were 22-24 years old. As many as 30.52% of young men recorded their first marriage age when they were 25-30 years old. Meanwhile, 37.27% of young women have their first marriage age at 19-21 years. Then, 26.48% of young women married for the first time when they were 16-18 years old.
Is There an Ideal Age for Marriage?
Many national legal aid organizations object to the marriage law’s standard age for marriage being too low. For the reasons above, YKP and the Child Rights Monitoring Foundation (YPHA) had asked the Constitutional Court to increase the minimum age for marriage for women to 18 years before the passing of Law No.16/2019 which stipulates 19 years as the minimum age for marriage.
In fact, according to the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN), the ideal age for marriage for men is at least 25 years. Meanwhile, the ideal age for women to marry is at least 21 years.
However, this recommendation was made not without reason. This is because in Indonesia in 2018, as many as 1 out of 9 children or 11.21% of women aged 20-24 years were married before the age of 18 (BPS).
So, that’s why the Government in the 2020 RPJMN is targeting to reduce the child marriage rate from 11.2% to 8.74%. So, the recommended age for marriage aims to avoid early marriage. Because, marriage at an early age triggers a number of risks, including:
- Psychological age that is still unstable will affect parenting patterns
- Age and mental maturity can have an impact on children’s nutrition and health
- Early marriage can put young women at risk of health from early pregnancy
- There is a potential for cervical cancer or cervical cancer in adolescents under 20 years of age who have sexual intercourse.
Source: Indonesia Baik
