Set in the backdrop of nineteenth century colonial India, the paper essentially delves into the plight of young girls married off, as per religious dictum, at the tender age of five or six often with husbands old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers, and the measures enacted by the colonial government to tackle the issue. Referred to as child brides, these young girls were subjected to the beastly carnal desires of their husbands, leading to excessive bleeding and death. Coupled with this was the curse of repeated childbirths. Given the grim scenario of violence within the household that a young girl had to endure, the paper would try to examine, in the context of the nineteenth century, how the British administration tried to negotiate this issue of marital violence through a series of legislations meant to protect these girls from early marriage and premature sexual intercourse, the hurdles the alien rulers had to face from within the indigenous society for stepping into the sensitive domain of the Indians considered sacrosanct. Seen from the socio-legal sphere, my argument is that the thread of continuity is inextricable woven in the pattern of socio-legal reforms in nineteenth century colonial India, from the abolition of Sati in 1829 to the Age of Consent Act of 1891, which outlawed sexual intercourse with a girl below the age of twelve. www.researchgate.net/publication/344487056_Countering_Marital_Violence