SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 20 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 8 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

The Age of Consent Act 1891 raised the minimum marital age for girls from:

(a)10 to 11 years
(b)10 to 12 years
(c)10 to 13 years
(d)10 to 14 years

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The Age of Consent Act, 1891 raised the age of consent for sexual intercourse for all girls, married or unmarried, from ten to twelve years.

It was passed on 19 March 1891, when Lord Lansdowne was Viceroy, after a campaign by the Parsi reformer and journalist Behramji Malabari.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
10 to 11 years — Twelve, not eleven, was the new age. The Act lifted the age of consent by two years, from ten to twelve.
(c)
10 to 13 years — Thirteen is not the 1891 figure. The Act fixed twelve as the age of consent, for married and unmarried girls alike.
(d)
10 to 14 years — Fourteen is the minimum marriage age for girls fixed later by the Sarda Act of 1929 (Child Marriage Restraint Act), not the 1891 figure of twelve.

Concept

The earlier age of consent, ten, came from the Indian Penal Code of 1860. The 1889 death of Phulmoni Dasi, a child bride raped by her husband, became the catalyst for change.

The resulting Act raised the age to twelve. Bal Gangadhar Tilak opposed it, arguing that the government should have nothing to do with regulating social customs.

The question says minimum marital age, but the 1891 Act raised the age of consent. It did not stop a younger girl being married.

A legal minimum age of marriage came with the Sarda Act, 1929: 14 for girls and 18 for boys, in force from 1 April 1930.

Key facts

Age of Consent Act, 1891: the age of consent for all girls, married or unmarried, went from 10 to 12.
It was passed on 19 March 1891, when Lord Lansdowne was Viceroy.
Behramji Malabari campaigned for it and Bal Gangadhar Tilak opposed it.
The Child Marriage Restraint (Sarda) Act, 1929 set the minimum marriage age at 14 for girls and 18 for boys.

Study next

Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856 and Ishwar Chandra VidyasagarChild Marriage Restraint (Sarda) Act, 1929Abolition of sati, 1829

Common traps

Picking 14 because it is the Sarda Act's marriage age for girls. That is 1929, not 1891.
Reading the 1891 Act as a marriage-age law. It fixed the age of consent.

The Act also appears as a distractor at 23 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.14, which asks for the 1773 Act passed to regulate the East India Company (the Regulating Act).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: History — all 218 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.