Recent Trends in Marriage

Matrimonial advertising and now matrimonial websites and applications have industrialised the middle of that spectrum. Sociologically the interesting point is that they have not dissolved caste: the categories by which such sites are searched are frequently caste categories, so a modern technology is being used to conduct an old rule more efficiently, which is a good example of cultural persistence within apparent change.

3. Inter-caste and inter-religious marriage

Increasing, and still a small proportion of all marriages. The direction is not in doubt; the level is low. Where a figure is quoted from a survey it should be quoted with the survey's name and year, and a student who cannot recall one should write that such marriages remain a small minority, which is accurate and safe.

What matters more than the number is the reaction. Marriages outside the caste attract family opposition, social boycott and, at the extreme, violence, which is the subject of the Supreme Court's directions on so-called honour crimes and of the role of khap panchayats discussed in [Legal Pluralism]. The special procedure for civil marriage across communities is provided by the Special Marriage Act 1954, whose notice requirement has itself been criticised for exposing couples to exactly that opposition.

4. Dowry: prohibited, persistent, and changed in form

The Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 prohibits the giving and taking of dowry. The practice has not ended. Three sociological observations are standard and defensible.

It has spread, into communities and regions where it was not traditional, sometimes displacing bride price.

It has been monetised and inflated, moving from customary gifts to substantial transfers of cash, vehicles and consumer goods.

It is connected to hypergamy, as [Forms of Marriage] explains: where brides' families compete for grooms of higher standing, the transfer rises.

The legal response has widened over time to reach cruelty connected with dowry demands and dowry deaths, and India's National Crime Records Bureau publishes the annual figures for offences reported under those heads. A student citing numbers should name the NCRB and the year.

5. Rising divorce, from a low base

Divorce rates in India remain among the lowest recorded anywhere, and are rising, particularly in cities and among the educated and employed.

The sociological reading, which is what earns marks, is that a rising divorce rate does not by itself show that marriages have become worse. It shows that leaving one has become possible: legally, because grounds and procedures exist; economically, because a woman with her own income can leave; and socially, because the stigma, while heavy, has lessened. Where those three conditions are absent, unhappy marriages persist and the divorce rate stays low, so a low rate is not evidence of contentment.

6. Live-in relationships

Cohabitation without marriage has appeared in Indian cities. Its legal treatment has developed through decisions of the Supreme Court and through the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005, which extends protection to a relationship in the nature of marriage. The sociological point is the mismatch: an arrangement defined by the absence of social recognition is being given legal consequences, which is unusual and interesting, and it shows law responding to a change in practice rather than leading it.

7. Working wives and the second shift

As married women take paid employment, the household division of labour becomes a subject of negotiation rather than of custom. Time-use evidence in India, including the Government's own Time Use Survey, consistently shows women performing very much more unpaid domestic and care work than men, including where both spouses are employed. The gap between the change in employment and the far slower change in domestic expectations is a clean instance of cultural lag from [Culture].

8. From alliance to companionship

The deepest change and the one that ties the others together. Where marriage was an alliance between families with companionship as a possible by-product, it is increasingly expected to be a companionship between two individuals, with the families' role reduced to approval.

This single shift explains most of the rest. If marriage is an alliance, its success is measured by whether the families are satisfied and it should not be dissolved for private unhappiness. If it is a companionship, private unhappiness is the very thing that makes it a failure, and divorce follows. Rising divorce is therefore not evidence that marriage is valued less; it is evidence that it is expected to deliver more.

9. Other trends to name briefly

Falling family size; increased remarriage of widows in some communities; later childbearing; a small but visible number of people not marrying at all; migration producing spouses living apart for years; and the recognition question for same-sex couples, which in India has been the subject of litigation and remains a live public debate.

A worked example

A woman married in a Konkan village in the 1980s at 17. Her family chose the husband; she met him once. She moved to his parents' house and worked in a household of nine. Her security lay in her husband's family, and leaving would have meant returning to a natal family with no land for her. Her marriage's success was judged by the two families.

Her granddaughter, in Pune, marries at 29. She met her husband through a website her mother found; they decided themselves. Both are employed; they live alone. Her security lies in her own salary. Her marriage is judged by whether the two of them are content, and if it is not, she has a legal ground, an income and a flat of her own to go to.

Nothing in this comparison shows the institution weakening. Both women are married. What changed is the age, the choice, the residence, the economics and the standard by which success is measured, and every one of those changes follows from the pressures listed at the head of this chapter.

What this does NOT mean

Marriage is not disappearing in India. The overwhelming majority of Indians marry, and rates of never-marrying remain low by world standards.

The trends are not uniform. They are concentrated in urban, educated and employed sections and are weak elsewhere, and generalising from Mumbai to the country is the commonest error in an answer.

Change is not the same as improvement. Later marriage and greater choice sit alongside dowry, honour crimes and a heavy unequal burden of domestic work.

Law has not caused most of it. Legislation has removed disabilities and provided remedies, but the drivers are education, employment, urbanisation and migration. This is exactly the argument of [Law and Social Change].

Quick revision

1. Rising age at marriage. Minimum ages 18 and 21 under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006; a Bill to raise the woman's age to 21 was introduced in December 2021.
2. From arrangement to a spectrum, ending in the couple's choice with family approval. Matrimonial websites have industrialised the middle, and still search on caste.
3. Inter-caste and inter-religious marriage rising from a low base; the Special Marriage Act 1954 provides the civil route.
4. Dowry prohibited by the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961; it has spread, been monetised, and is connected to hypergamy.
5. Divorce rising from a very low base. A low rate is not evidence of happy marriages; it is evidence that leaving is not possible.
6. Live-in relationships, partially recognised through the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 and case law.
7. Working wives with a persisting unequal domestic burden: cultural lag.
8. From alliance to companionship, the change that explains the others: marriage is expected to deliver more, so it fails more often.

Test yourself

1. State five recent trends in Indian marriage. Rising age at marriage, driven by education, employment and law; a shift from arrangement by elders towards a spectrum ending in the couple's own choice; a rise in inter-caste and inter-religious marriage from a low base; the persistence and monetisation of dowry despite its prohibition in 1961; and a rising divorce rate from a very low base, together with the appearance of live-in relationships and their partial legal recognition.

2. Does a rising divorce rate show that marriage is failing? Not by itself. A rise shows that leaving a marriage has become possible: legally, because grounds and procedures exist; economically, because a woman with an income can support herself; and socially, because stigma has lessened. Where those conditions are absent, unhappy marriages simply continue and the recorded rate stays low, so a low rate is not evidence of contentment. The rise also reflects a higher expectation of marriage, not a lower valuation of it.

3. Why has dowry persisted despite prohibition since 1961? Because the legislation addresses the transaction while leaving in place the social arrangements that generate it: caste endogamy, which restricts the eligible set; hypergamy, which makes families compete for grooms of higher standing and so bids up the transfer; the exclusion of daughters from a share in the family enterprise in practice; and the difficulty of proving an offence which both families have an interest in concealing. It has also spread to communities where it was not traditional.

4. What is the deepest change in the institution, and what follows from it? The shift from marriage as an alliance between families to marriage as a companionship between individuals. It follows that success is now measured by the satisfaction of the two people rather than of the two families; that private unhappiness becomes a reason to end the marriage rather than something to be borne; and therefore that divorce rises not because marriage is valued less but because it is expected to deliver much more.

5. Are these trends uniform across India? No, and saying so is essential to a good answer. They are concentrated among urban, educated and employed populations and are weak or absent elsewhere; caste endogamy remains the general rule; and dowry has spread even as choice in marriage has widened. Generalising from metropolitan practice to the whole country misdescribes both.