For the villagers of the State, there's nothing unusual about the incident. Far from it. Over 20,000 child marriages reportedly take place every year here, and this is apparently after the numbers have fallen steeply over the past two decades. The practice is, of course, banned under the law, but not one person has so far been convicted for it.

On the contrary, these weddings often take place under the protective hand of the law. The sarpanch and panchayat members of a village areinvited for the weddings and are frequently present. ``Hum samaj ke khilaaf bolenge to samaj hamara samarthan nahin karega (If we speak against the society we live in, the society will not support us),'' they contend. In other words, no one wants to risk losing elections.

Under the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, popularly known as the Sharda Act, only a magistrate can take cognisance of such an offence, after a preliminary inquiry. The police thus can only take the alleged culprits to court. The magistrate issues an injunction prohibiting the planned wedding on a particular date and venue. What happens generally is that the people just perform the ceremony a day earlier or later. Even if someone decides to complain, he has to do so within a year of the wedding happening.

For the villagers, anyway, the law matters little. They have several ``justifications'' for marrying their children early. Some say everybody has to marry some time, so what is the harm if it takes place early and brings together twofamilies.

Ram Vilas Gujar, a relative of the bride in the incident mentioned earlier, contends that it is often difficult to find a good groom for older girls. ``Jab saare achhe ladkon ki shaadi pehle hi ho jayegi,'' he argues, ``tab ladki ke liye achha var kahan milega (If all good boys get married early, how will we find a nice husband for our daughters)?''Another argument, forwarded by Shankar Singh, is that boys become more responsible after their wedding and do not go astray. Families also fear that a boy may not do so well once he grows up and it may be difficult to find a nice bride for him then. But the most important reason, and some of the boys' families admit this, could be that an additional member adds to the work force of a family and helps its economy.

One ``advantage'' is magnanimously listed for the girl too. According to villagers, a married girl has less danger of getting sexually harassed or raped.

Most of the weddings take place during `Akha Teej', in thebeginning of summer, when no specific muhurat or auspicious time is needed to conduct a wedding and one can marry any time. As the crops are harvested around the same time, the people generally have money and are free to enjoy the pleasant weather.

Weddings may take place by the dozens in a single village itself during this period, and a family might marry off three-four children at one go. The overbooked pundits go running from one venue to another, performing one ritual at a time at each. Marriage parties land up in hordes, on tractors and camel carts, and there are endless festivities in villages.

The government too seems to remember the widespread practice only during Akha Teej.

It runs a week's campaign around this time, along with a publicity drive. A few hundred cases in which child weddings were stopped are compiled and their list released. To get around this, the people have now started marrying off children during other wedding seasons as well.

The efforts of sathins, women socialworkers, against the practice were successful and lasting. They educated people on the drawbacks of the custom as well as reported instances of child weddings to the administration.

Sometimes it invited trouble, like in the case of Bhanwari Devi, and now the institution of sathins too is fading away.

Sociologist Rajiv Gupta points out that the patriarchal custom has survived everything from feudalism and colonialism to capitalism. It gives cultural legitimacy to a female child labour and reinforces the female dependency structure.

It also results in problems like desertion of child brides and young widows. In the early '90s, there were a series of reports listing hundreds of senior officials in governments, banks and other prestigious occupations, all of them tribal Meenas, who had abandoned their uneducated wives after living off them for their upkeep and education.

They had gone and married educated, urban girls who fitted into their new environment. In Rajput families, where there is no custom ofremarriage, a child widow might end up spending her entire life without a partner. According to one estimate, there are 20 lakh widows in Rajasthan, and a substantial number of them are under 30 years of age. And they are condemned to this zone between life and death for an incident of which most can remember little, if anything at all.