Modernization and Legal Reform: Muslim Minors and Freedom of Marriage in India

This article presents a regional study of the mechanics of modernization and liberalization of Muslim law in India. I explore these themes by focusing on how Indian courts, over nearly two centuries, interpreted the Islamic doctrine of khiyār al-bulūgh—the right of a minor to repudiate her marriage upon attaining majority. I also revisit the legislative debates that occurred during the codification of this doctrine into the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939. I identify two paradoxes from this history: first, that the liberalization of religious laws has been achieved at least as reliably and stably through judicial failures—errors, amnesia, indolence and ineptitude—as through deliberate legislative and judicial interventions; and second, that the recent overlaying of religious laws with “liberal-secular” laws in India has resulted in the consolidation and intensification of patriarchal authority over adolescent sexuality—an authority that had been scattered and loosely articulated under the regime of “purely religious” laws.