The legality of Live-in relationship in India
Even though you are not officially married you have the few following legal issues & position while living-in in India
- 1.Live in relationship may be immoral in the eyes of the conservative Indian society but it is not "illegal" in the eyes of law.
- 2.The Status of children born out of such relationship has legitimacy to every child, irrespective of birth out of a void, voidable or valid marriage. However, they don't have property and maintenance rights. Only problems is in those cases the couple break up then who would maintain the child in case none wants to take responsibility remains a big problem
- 3.The status of the female partner remains vulnerable in a live in relationship given the fact she is exploited emotionally and physically during the relationship.
- 4.The Domestic Violence Act provides protection to the woman if the relationship is "in the nature of marriage".
- 5.Nature of marriage' must also fulfill the following criteria
- I.The couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses.
- II.They must be of legal age to marry.
- III.They must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried.
- IV.They must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a significant period of time, and in addition the parties must have lived together in a 'shared household' as defined in.
- 6.Merely spending weekends together or a one night stand would not make it a 'domestic relationship'
- 7.It also held that if a man has a 'keep' whom he maintains financially and uses mainly for sexual purpose and/or as a servant it would not, in our opinion, be a relationship in the nature of marriage'.
- 8.If a woman has been in a live-in relationship for considerably long time, she ought to enjoy the legal status as given to wife.
- 9.However, recently it was observed that it is divorced wife who is treated as a wife and if a person has not even been married i.e. the case of live in partners, they cannot be divorced, and hence cannot claim maintenance
- 10.Litigation would drastically increase in this case.
- 11.Moreover the psychological impact on children born out of this relationship would be very bad leading to mental diseases and criminal tendencies. All this would give rise to an unstable society.
- 12.So based on above & other articles in this section you weigh the pros and cons of this and then accordingly take a decision for yourselves.
