Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Recently Rajasthan Human Rights Commission chairperson, Prakash Tatia who is also a retired chief justice of Jharkhand High Court and former judge of Rajasthan High Court said that live-in-relationships are social terrorism.

India is a nation of strong beliefs and traditional following. If you ask your grandparents or for that matter even your parents about living in with the opposite gender without marriages, they will look at you as if you have committed a serious crime. If the society comes to know about someone staying in a live-in relationship the person be it a girl or a boy is indirectly boycotted from the society and people start talking about them in whispers.

Yes, this is the reality of the Indian society, no matter what laws and constitutions are made and amended the thinking and beliefs of the society cannot be changed. Though according to the Indian constitution it is legally allowed for two adults above the age of 18 of opposite sex to live together as husband and wife without actually getting married, the society does not approve of it.

The mentality and the thinking of the society or rather at least a part of the society was mirrored in the comments given by Prakash Tatia. He said that women in a live-in relationship are legally vulnerable and after being abandoned in the relation their condition is worse than that of the victim of triple talaq. He questioned that what type of freedom is it that the generation is enjoying where there is no moral values and ethics. What type of a relationship this is where anyone walks in to live with another person and leave and go live with any third person anytime. He further added that at least when a person is married the couple has social security, but who takes the responsibility if anything goes wrong n a live-in relationship. “Two consenting adults don’t have the right to end the dignity of the entire society…live-in relationships need to be registered like a marriage….terminating the marriage also should go through a legal process,” Tatia said.

According to Tatia, it is only the women who suffer the consequences of live-in relationship and the condition of the women abandoned in such relations is far worse than that of a divorced woman. But the question that arises here is that is the women who suffer all the consequences or is it the mentality of the society that forces the women to bear the ill effects? It is not only the matter of Tatia but a lot many people in the nation are against the practice and legality of the live-in relationships.

Another such critic was noticed when earlier this month Rajasthan State Women’s Commission had announced that it will launch a campaign against live-in relation as it is against the culture. The representative of the commission said that it is the women who suffer the most when such relationships end and that there is no help or support which can be provided to such women.

Why is it that only a divorced women or a live-in relation abandoned women only has to suffer? It is not just the girl or the women who are left out, even the boy or the man is left alone and abandoned after a divorce or a break up in the live-in relationship. Why is that an alone woman is given sympathy and treated like a victim and man free to participate in the society without anyone whispering or talking in low voice about them? Is it not high time that the society stops looking at the women with pitiful eyes and accept them equally as they accept a divorced man?

The Indian Constitution in 201o had stated live-in relationship to be legal. Again in March 2015, the SC stated that an unmarried couple living together as husband and wife will enjoy the same legal status as that of a married couple and will also have all the rights given to a married couple. A woman in a live-in relationship will be entitled to the same benefits of property, alimony, maintenance and custody as a woman in a married relationship. In fact, the law also states that if the couple has any child during the period of them staying in a live-in relationship, the child will also enjoy all the benefits that enjoyed by a child born after marriage. The child has the right to share in the father’s property and the mother can fight for the custody of the child if the couple decides to discontinue the relationship.

Not to miss the point of naming the culture of live-in relation ship as a practice adopted from the western countries, the society does not miss any chance of criticising it. Even though the constitution has declared the concept of live-in-relationship it is still a far dream to be achieved in the prevailing Indian society mentality.