Tough divorce law makes couples go in for separation

NEW DELHI: A law that makes it difficult to get a divorce may not have kept unhappy married couples together. Census data released this week suggests these couples were splitting up anyway, without a divorce.

For every divorcee recorded by the census, there was an average of two more who told enumerators that they too had separated from their spouses. For Hindus, there were three more separated people for every divorcee.

The data comes against the backdrop of the NDA govern- ment’s move to drop a muchdebated bill that would give legal sanctity to live-in relationships and make it easier for Hindus to get a divorce.