“Boys can take examinations multiple times after the age limit, but the marriage age is 23 for women.”
““Boys can take examinations multiple times after the age limit, but the marriage age is 23 for women.””Rahul Gandhi, Chhatron Ki Goonj rally, Pune, 22 August 2026
Rated False
The facts
Another blatant lie. There is no legal marriage age of 23 for women. Under the law that existed before the Modi Government, the minimum marriageable age was 18 for women and 21 for men. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, enacted during the UPA era, itself maintained this distinction.
In other words, it was the Congress-led UPA-era legal framework that continued to treat the minimum marriage age differently for men and women: 21 versus 18.
The Modi Government moved to remove this distinction. The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021 proposed raising the minimum marriage age for women from 18 to 21, bringing it at par with men.
Therefore, Rahul Gandhi’s statement is doubly misleading: 23 is not the marriage age for women, and the very government he represents had retained the 18-versus-21 distinction, while the Modi Government proposed making the legal age 21 for both men and women.