Rani had her first daughter soon after getting married at the age of 16 in 2017.
“ I worry about how he will react when I return home and tell him our second child is also a girl,” says the 20-year-old as she breastfeeds the infant in her bed at the Danapur Sub-Divisional Hospital in Bihar’s Patna district. “ He was expecting a son this time,” she says nervously. Rani Mahto is torn between happiness over the safe delivery of her now two-day-old baby – and apprehension over going home and telling her husband that it’s a girl. Illustration: Priyanka Borar/ People’s Archive of Rural India For them, social custom and prejudice override laws and legal pronouncements. By Jigyasa Mishra/PARI Child and adolescent brides in Bihar’s Patna district have no choice but to keep producing babies until they deliver a boy.
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