Live-in relationships are legal in India but how many are aware of this?

Owing to Nandakumar (aged 20 in 2017) being a year short of the legal age for marriage, his wife Thushara’s (aged 19) father requested a Kerala High Court court to declare the marriage legally void. The verdict was passed in favour of the father, and he was given custody of her, against her wishes. 

After a second runaway attempt, the couple reunited and, the angry father went back to court and the verdict was taken to the Supreme Court. In what could be called a landmark judgement, the court gave Thushara the freedom to choose who she stays with, whether they were of marriageable age or not, or even if they were not in wedlock. 

“There is no law that bars people from living together - to be married you need to be above a certain age but not to live with someone,” says advocate Sushma Harini. Living with a man is similar to a woman living with a female roommate. 

“No one questions that, right? Similarly, two people of opposite genders staying in the same house whether they’re in a relationship or not isn’t wrong. The taboos are more moral, not legal,” she feels. 

There a few cases of couples who have lived together for several years, without getting married, and some even have children.” 

Given that such a law exists, question arises if it would be a boon or bane, especially considering most taboos surrounding this are moral. 

“It’s definitely a boon for people like me because I think the relationship I share with the woman I love is beyond the institution of marriage — neither of us needs external validation,” feels Prince Andrew Abraham, a musician and theatre person in Chennai. The decision to live together wasn’t tough at all, but the aftermath was and still is. 

“Our neighbours started ‘talking’ the second they got to know we weren’t married; in fact, many tried telling us that it was the right thing to do. But renting a house or shutting up people shouldn’t be the sole reason for a marriage!” he exclaims. 

Society believes in modernisation for certain things, but thought processes about man and woman living together without being married are still old school. 

When we asked Janaki and Ramachandra, a couple whose daughter is in a live-in relationship in Chennai, about this, they say, “People are mostly scared that their children will get into the wrong company, wrong habits or premarital sex — if these things are more openly talked about, it could help solve the problem,” says Janaki. 

“I strongly believe that both parties involved should be majors because we presume that by virtue of education and exposure at that age, they’ll be mature enough to understand the pros and cons of living with another person,” he feels. 

About the internal turmoil they went through due to their daughter living with a man, “We actually didn’t go through any. We didn’t even imagine things could go wrong. I’m more open-minded and my husband is a bit traditional but we trusted our upbringing and our daughter to know both of them are responsible adults,” she adds. 

“The only negatives I can think of are that if either person goes through domestic abuse when in a live-in relationship, it defeats the purpose. Plus if they have a child out of wedlock and then the couple decides to split, no Indian law accommodates the child bearing the mother’s details; the father’s name is a must — I wish the law can be modified to accommodate the changing times,” Janaki wraps up.