Children born
(For ever married women only)
22. Age at first marriage
Write the age in completed years.
Give actual number, if none put a cross in the relevant column.
_ _
8.2 Age at first marriage (Col 22)
For a woman who has been entered as married in Col. 6, it will generally be her first marriage, but such a situation may also come up that this marriage is the second, third or more. Similarly the women for whom "widow" or "divorced" has been entered in Col. 6, it could be after her first marriage or she might have married many times before being divorced and now she is "widow" or "divorced" but in Col. 4 the age at which she married the first time will be entered. If some woman had married more than once the ages at other marriages will not be entered.
Since it is a touchy and sensitive question, in order to get an accurate answer the enumerators should be polite and humble in asking the question and be careful that the respondent may not get offended due to his minor mistake. The enumerator should adopt the following ways for obtaining this information.
If the marital status of a women has been shown, in Col 6, as married then the enumerator (in a proper way) should determine whether this is her only marriage and after it ask this question
1) What was age of Mrs. X/Y when she got married?
If the enumerator observes that the present marriage is not her first marriage then the question may be asked,
2) What was the age of Mrs. X/Y when she got married first? (which occurred somewhere else).
Similarly if the women is presently entered as widow or divorced then enumerator should try to know that whether it was her only marriage before being widowed or divorced. If it is not the case then the above mentioned question 2 may be asked. The enumerator should try to assess the accurate age which is given by the respondent. According to the existing law since 1960, a woman of less than 14 years age can not be married but sometimes the women get married at age less than fourteen years. Therefore if a [Pg. 63] woman says that she got married at age less than fourteen years then the enumerator should assess the accurate age by asking the related questions.