Indian Marriages - A Legal nightmare

Indians are proud to understand that marriages in India are intriguing for the rest of the World. And when it comes leaving a mark in the social circle, people don’t miss out anything in glorifying the traditional grandeur and colorful extravaganza of Indian Marriages. The guests leave with enough data to gossip about the particulars of the marriage ceremony like jewelry worn by the bride, cuisines, and exotic flower decorations etc in their circles for a month to even a year. Everybody appears to be in their own World; some are spell-bound but try to behave normally; some are analyzing the nitty-gritty of the decoration to estimate the actual expenses incurred and some are just keeping their enthusiasm intact.

Before the marriage, the parents of the bride and the groom are busy estimating the expenses, the guests to be invited, the jewelry, dresses, cuisines, decoration, gifts, orchestra if any, vehicles etc. The bride and the groom are overwhelmingly conscious but manage to hide their anxiety. After the marriage, the whole marriage procession appears to be a dream, a fairy tale excluding the pinching bills that is to be paid. Everything comes back to normal except that their life will never remain the same from now onward.

The optimism and positivity of the Indian people is indeed commendable. They are absolutely oblivion of the legal provisions that govern the marriages in India. Who would bother to know that these days, the groom and his parents are arrested and put behind bars on a false dowry harassment complaint of the bride? Who would bother to know that these days, Dowry Prohibition Law IPC 498A is rampantly misused to extort money from the groom? They would never believe that the bride demands mind-blowing amount of money to settle a false case. They will not get disturbed to know that the accused will be considered guilty until proven innocent. They remain optimistic all through the marriage and after. The legal proceedings is the last thing a family wants to face in India but the groom and his parents prefer to ignore such occurrences and remain positive that it will never happen in their life. Interestingly, those who are actually falsely implicated in this manner had the same optimism and positive confidence.

The labyrinth of legal procedures in India is such that when one is entangled into these complex judicial provisions, their whole life will be wrecked. Lawyers and cops, like scavengers, will extort as much money as possible giving false assurance that everything will be taken care of. The judge, who has detached him/herself from the reality, will pass an order that would be more painful than the life imprisonment. The groom and his parents will give away huge sum of money to the wife, who is a victim by choice. The husband is emotionally and financially ruined and prepares to arrange for maintenance to be given to his ex-wife. His parents remembers courteous interaction with the bride’s parents, the efforts and money gone into the marriage procession, the dark patchy walls of the prison, intimidation of the cops and emotionally exhausting court proceedings. The wife goes back to her home winning the jackpot without a grain of anxiety for her future and reputation in the society.

Indian families should be praised for their optimism because despite knowing that legal provisions are misused to harass husbands and his parents after marriage, they still go ahead and hope a happy and wholesome married life for their son. They dream a beautiful marriage for their son even after knowing that more such biased laws are been enacted to be misused after marriage. Indian family’s predicament does not end here. Live-in relationship, too, comes with its own legal provisions that again put the husband and his parents at the receiving end with no fault of theirs. Any relationship between a man and a woman validated by marriage or live-in is attached with such biased laws. Remaining single seems to be a safer way of living one’s life. But the Indian families are stubborn in matters of marriages, how much ever biased laws are enacted and misused; they will continue to get married.

Indian marriages are nothing less than a legal nightmare. The sanctity of the marriage is lost but the hope of people still lives on. Let us see how long this hope survives.   

12:59 PM - Thursday, December 28, 2006