The Special Marriage Act, 1954: A Critique

Abstract

India is a country with divergent cultural gaiety and religious affinity of people living together exhibiting ‘unity in diversity’. Institution of marriage and value oriented family system are signifying features of Indian culture. The Supreme Court stated that every young man or a woman, has a right to marry cannot be accepted in the absolute terms. Having regard to the age and the biological needs, a person may have a right to marry.4 Arranged marriage, (that to,) or intra caste marriage is the generally accepted norm in the Indian society. ‘Love marriage,’ ‘inter caste’5 or ‘inter religious,’ marriage or ‘registered’ / ‘Court marriage’ is generally is a rarity.6 Parents customarily select bride or groom to their children in the same caste or religion. The society eschews those who marry out of their caste or community. Honor killings7 have been reported every year in India.8 Interestingly, from the statistics of the United Nations, one in five cases of honour killing internationally every year are of India.9 On the other hand, there are some NGOs helping the performance of love marriages and extending protection for such love marriages