Should Child Engagements be allowed in India especially Gujarat?

Male to Female Sex ratio in Gujarat is very alarming 1000:918 and this indicates that on average 1 in 10 adult male in Gujarat will not be able to find a life partner in Gujarat. And those who do will have to make huge compromises. I am already seeing this in my family, friends circle as well as office.

Government should give special incentives to parents for taking care of girl child. In poor families, villages - as the cost of living and inflation has continued to rise, there are many cases of abortion reported and most of these are of girl child. This ratio is likely to worsen and in another 2 decades there will be a real challenge for parents to find a right bride for their male child.

With India getting more and more westernized and today's Indian woman being more independent and career oriented then ever before, we are seeing increasing family feuds and divorces. In many cases, even when husband and wife both work, they can barely make their ends meet because of cost of living and hence they do not think of parenthood. I still wonder what is the use of all this modernization if one cannot enjoy life.

Nonetheless, I was recently talking to servant girls who work in our house. One of them got engaged and her age was 16!!. Her sister got engaged at 12!!. She was very happy too. I asked in more details whether her consent was taken prior to fixing her engagement and she said 'Yes'. She will now stay with her own parents till she turns 18 after which she will get married and move to her in-laws house. I asked more about her fiance and she said he was studying 'Diploma Engineering' and her father-in-law was working in govt office drawing Rs. 50K per month. Wow! I liked this second part that poor people are now seriously considering educating their kids.

With what I have been seeing around in my circles where guys in 30's are still single, I wonder if their parents would have thought of something like this when they were in their teens. Maybe child engagement should be allowed and marriage age still needs to be kept at 18.

Your thoughts?