Living-in GETS A NEW LIFE
Recent judgments in the courts seek to protect the rights of children of unmarried parents and chip away at the social prejudices against live-in relationships
RRhea Iqbal (name changed) learned what the word bastard
meant at the age of four on the school playground. It is what her friends called her that day, having overheard their parents refer to the little girl as one. “We gained acceptance as an unmarried couple easily and thought our child would too. But later we regretted being honest with the school. It would have been far easier to say I had been widowed,” says her mother Safeena Iqbal (name changed), a 36-year-old history teacher in Pune. Her partner, Varun Kapoor (name changed), is a management consultant and spends much of the year travelling. When in town, the couple live together. They have been together for over a decade and decided not to marry to avoid confrontation with family over religion. “Over the years, our families got used to the relationship. When Rhea came,
A SUPREME COURT BENCH HAS RULED THAT IF A MAN AND WOMAN HAVE LIVED TOGETHER FOR A CONSIDERABLE PERIOD, THEY WILL BE PRESUMED TO BE MARRIED AND THEIR CHILDREN CANNOT BE DENIED THE RIGHT TO INHERITANCE
they accepted her readily too and we thought others would too. But the social exclusion our daughter has faced has been shocking,” says Kapoor.
On June 14, the Supreme Court came up with a historic verdict—children born to couples living together for a considerable period will be entitled to inherit ancestral property. The ruling has built on an earlier pronouncement acknowledging the legitimacy of children of unmarried parents, almost a decade ago. But the new division bench order of Justices Abdul Nazeer and Vikram Nath at the apex court took the recognition a notch further by guaranteeing them inheritance rights.
For Safeen Iqbal and Varun Kapoor, the judgment came as both affirmation and sweet relief. “The court ruling is life-altering,” says Kapoor. “Of course, those unmarried but dating should have the right to have children and live with dignity. Many today don’t believe in the institution of marriage, why should their children suffer as a result of their beliefs?” Others in the legal community have welcomed the move as another important but incremental step towards justice and a freedom from stigma and discrimination for parents and children who have lived together without the religious or legal ceremony of marriage.
But what the law has done, will society do as easily? Prasanto Ray, social scientist and professor emeritus at Presidency University, Kolkata, does not think so. “Passing a judgment or an act is one thing, but assimilating it in social life first as practice and then as social behaviour quite another. It cannot happen overnight.”
Pablo and Aruna (both names changed), scholars at a reputed university in the UK, are discovering this the hard way. Coming home to India after three years, they are bringing with them their three-year-old daughter, to introduce her to her grandparents and the extended family. However, far from looking forward to the prospect, Pablo’s parents, the Mukherjees, are apprehensive. The unmarried status
of the couple had always been a source of gossip and curiosity among neighbours and relatives. With a child in the mix now, the Mukherjees have just not been able to muster the enthusiasm for the grand celebration Pablo hopes to hold for his daughter’s birthday, in the midst of friends and family.
THE ROAD TO RECOGNITION
The latest ruling came in response to an appeal filed against a 2009 Kerala High Court verdict in Kattukandi Edathil Krishnan & Another vs Kattukandi Edathil Valsan & Others. The case was related to a property dispute in Calicut, where the plaintiff, whose parents had cohabited for several years but not married, was demanding his share in the partition of property. The trial court ruled in his favour, the HC overturned it, and the apex court finally relied on the Indian Evidence Act 1872 to declare, ‘The law has a presumption in favour of marriage and not concubinage; therefore, live-in relationships have an advantage of a long cohabitation which gives a presumption in their favour, thus enhancing the claim of legitimacy of the children born out of such relationship.” In its 2010 verdict in the S. Khushboo vs Kanniammal case, the Supreme Court had held that two adults cohabiting for a considerable period have to be acknowledged as being in a domestic relationship, of the kind that exists between spouses (see The Quest for Legitimacy). It also brought live-in relationships under the purview of the Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution. In 2014, the courts reaffirmed that children born out of such relationships were legitimate. The latest verdict upholds their right to property under the various inheritance laws.
With law paving a progressive way, what does this portend for marriage as a social construct in India? Will Indian society readily accept what the law has of late decreed?
WILL LIVE-IN BE THE DEATH OF MARRIAGE?
Now that the Supreme Court order has opened a vista of possibilities for couples who want to keep their relationship open-ended, it’s conceivable that fewer couples will choose to marry. There are signs that the institution of marriage is no longer seen as the alpha and omega of life—particularly by the upwardly mobile urban demographic. The YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey 2020 found a fourth of its young respondents reluctant to marry. The figure goes up to 35 per cent among those above 30.
As many young professionals see it, marriage sets boundaries to which couples are expected to conform. Marriage is also not just about two individuals, it is rather a communion of two families, with even distant relatives getting drawn into it. “Why should we accept such boundaries when the world is open to us?” asks Tia, a 24-year-old professional from south Kolkata. “Our parents might argue that people should marry to have progeny and take the lineage forward. But do we really need to marry for gratifying our physical needs or having children?”
Many even blame the institution of marriage for problems like dowry and domestic violence. “If you are subjected to abuse in a live-in relationship, you can just break up and walk out. Unlike in a marital relationship, you don’t have to undergo a legal process of separation and divorce,” says Sunayani, 40, a copywriter in an advertising agency who has been living in with her partner Ankur, 37, a freelance editor, in central Kolkata for the past four years. The couple has been lucky as their family has been accepting of their relationship. “I come from a broken home, so my decision to live with Ankur was warmly accepted,” she says. Ankur is grateful that people leave them alone. According to him, a lot of people get “unnecessarily entangled” in the lives of married couples, interfering in every decision. “In the case of live-in couples, people who don’t really matter mostly keep away as they have issues with the relationship itself,” he says. The couple also believes that married people are prone to getting into extramarital relationships as “they know the marital relation cannot be ended in a jiffy”. “Live-in couples work harder to make the relationship work, as either partner can choose to end it at any moment,” says Sunayani. Couples like them are grateful that the legal system has woken up to the need to ensure security and social recognition to livein partners and their children. “In the years ahead, I’m sure society will be more open to us, and many of us would love to have children,” says Kaustav, 35, a sound designer who has been in a relationship with his partner Anuradha Sengupta, 36, for six years. Happy that the judiciary is taking a progressive stand on live-in relationships, Kaustav and Anuradha hope the courts will ensure the rulings are enforced across the country in both letter and spirit. They also hope that live-in couples will be allowed to adopt children at some point and that they will have the same rights as any other child.
LIVE-IN FOR LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER
The next challenge will be for couples to prove they have been living together for a considerable period to ensure their children are entitled to inheritance rights. “There’s no specification on how many years couples need to live together to pass the test of legitimacy,” says lawyer Firdous Shamim. “However, for the Evidence Act to ratify that couples have lived together under the same roof, a minimum of five years of cohabitation is required.” Shamim, who handles many complications arising out of live-in relationships, says that since trust alone is the basic foundation of such relationships, legal provisions are necessary to help people navigate through ambiguous areas better. “In case of complications, it becomes essential to prove that the couples were living together. Mere pictures of the couple or spending a vacation together do not suffice.”
Sociologist and psychoanalyst Mahuya Ghosh believes that cultural reservations about live-in relationships stem from the negativity we associate with them. “Let us forget for a while that a live-in relationship is a decision against marriage or a counter to marital status. If we see it as a step to test compatibility before taking the big plunge called marriage instead of a rebellion against it, then we can happily accept the concept,” she says.
Perhaps this is why Kaustav and Anuradha’s landlord made little fuss when they moved in together. He was hoping a much-needed roof overhead would help cement the relationship of two young people deeply in love. “When we shifted here six years ago, uncle (the landlord) would introduce us as husband and wife to be. We never protested since it pleased him. Initially, people would ask if we were married. But now, after six years of being together, people presume we are married,” says Anuradha. They haven’t bothered to correct them, for who knows what awaits the couple next. ■
“PASSING A JUDGMENT IS ONE THING, BUT ASSIMILATING IT IN SOCIAL LIFE FIRST AS PRACTICE AND THEN AS SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR ANOTHER”
PRASANTO RAY Professor Emeritus, Presidency University, Kolkata