Age at first marriage of women has been increasing in Bangladesh but marriage before 18 years
for girls still prevails in Bangladesh especially in rural areas. This paper examines various factors
of violation of legal age at first marriage of women in Bangladesh. The population of the study is
comprised of individual level married women of different areas in Bangladesh. A sample of 350
married women has been constructed through purposive sampling technique and surveyed
through structured questionnaire. Research data have been analyzed by using descriptive and
inferential statistics as one-way ANOVA and Chi-square correlation. In one-way ANOVA
analysis, it is found that mean age at first marriage of women is 16.25 years in rural and 18.46
years in urban. The findings of this study also reveal that some demographic, socio-economic,
and psychological factors like women’s education, occupation, place of residence, husband’s
education, occupation, consent to marry, parents’ education, psychological maturity, economic
condition, age and religion lead the women to violation of legal age at first marriage in
Bangladesh. In chi-square correlation analysis, it is found that all of the factors except women
religion have significant impacts on age at first marriage of women. The findings of this study
will help the concerned parties for further studies and policy formulation.