The Phenomenon of Intergenerational Child Marriage Practice and Its Causes

Abstract

Abstract The prevalence of child marriage has not been lowered even though the age limit for marriage has been raised to 19 years according to the law. Grobogan is the region with the highest prevalence of married and pregnant women at the age of children (less than 19 years old) in Central Java in the last 5 years. The purpose of the study was to find out the practice of child marriage and its causes, the marriage pattern of boys and girls, and the relationship between parental marriage history and the incidence of child marriage in the community. Secondary data research from marriage dispensation documents at the Purwodadi Religious Court Class 1A. The study used a purposive sampling technique, namely couples married in the Grobogan district in the last 5 years (2018-2022) where one or both of them were less than 19 years old and both of their parents were still alive, a sample of 2,103 couples was obtained. The data was analyzed quantitatively using the Chi-square test. The results of the study found that women are the most likely to get married at the age of children. The most common causes of child marriage practices are dating behavior (76.8%), pregnancy (15.9%), having proposed (6.7%), having given birth to a child (0.4%), and having actively engaged in sex (0.1%). There is a significant relationship between the marriage history of mothers and the marriage of their daughters. Mothers who marry at a child’s age also cause child marriage in their daughters (p-value 0.0002).