A Correlational Study to analyze the knowledge and attitude towards early marriage among parents at selected rural areas, Kolhapur District
Authors: Jadhav Trupti 
Published: December 2023

Early marriage in India is a matter of serious concern. Child Marriage denies a child the basic right to good health, nutrition and education. It is widely acknowledged that early marriage makes girls more vulnerable to violence, abuse and exploitation. For both girls and boys, marriage has a strong physical, intellectual, psychological and emotional impact, cutting off educational opportunities and chances of personal growth. So it is more important to give the knowledge regarding early marriage to the parents. The objectives of the study were: 1. To analyze the knowledge and attitude towards early marriage among parents.2. To find out correlation between knowledge scores and attitude scores towards early marriage among parents.3. To find out an association between knowledge scores towards early marriage among parents with their selected socio-demographic variables.4. To find out an association between attitude scores towards early marriage among parents with their selected socio-demographic variables. Methods: The research approach adopted for the study was Correlational Survey approach. Research design was Non experimental, Descriptive Correlational research design. By using non-probability purposive sampling technique 100 parents were selected for the study. Structured knowledge questionnaire and attitude scale was used to assess the knowledge and attitude towards early marriage of the parents. The data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The result showed that majority of the subjects 86(86%) had average knowledge and minimum 3(3%) had poor knowledge and 11(11%) had good knowledge. These findings of study were suggested that the parents were having average knowledge regarding early marriage and need to improve their knowledge. Regarding attitude, results showed that among parents majority of subjects had 87(87%) Positive attitude score and minimum have 13(13%) Negative attitude score. Correlation between knowledge and attitude score was, The calculated correlation value was (tcal=0.821) greater than tabulated value (ttab=o.152). Therefore the findings revealed that there was moderate positive correlation between knowledge score and attitude score towards early marriage. This showed that knowledge and attitude was correlated to each other. Hence H1 is accepted. This indicated that there was a moderate positive correlation between knowledge and attitude which was statistically significant at p<0.05 level, regarding early marriage This showed that knowledge and attitude was correlated to each other. There was significant association between knowledge scores and selected socio demographic variables. Like occupation of fathers [χ2cal= 17.227*, χ2tab=12.59], total number of children [χ2cal= 13.95*, χ2tab=9.490]. The calculated Chi-square values were greater than tabulated value at p < 0.05 level of significance. Hence H2 is accepted. This indicated that there was significant association between knowledge scores and selected socio-demographic variables at p < 0.05 level of significance. There was significant association between attitude scores and selected socio demographic variables like In subjects there was significant association between attitude scores and selected socio demographic variables like education of fathers [χ2cal= 23.16*, χ2tab=7.82], education of mothers [χ2cal= 10.306*, χ2tab=7.82],monthly income of family [χ2cal= 38.713*, χ2tab= 7.82], age at marriage of mothers [χ2cal= 19.333*, χ2tab=7.82], age at marriage, total number of children [χ2cal= 7.318*, χ2tab=5.99], The calculated Chi-square values were greater than tabulated value at p < 0.05 level of significance. Hence H3 is accepted. This indicated that there was significant association between attitude scores and selected socio-demographic variables at p < 0.05 level of significance. Interpretation and Conclusion: The present study revealed that majority of parents had average knowledge on early marriage and most of parents had positive attitude. Therefore it was concluded that there is need to increase the knowledge regarding early marriage and negative attitude towards early marriage in some parents.