Usha*, a 30-year-old woman who was in a live-in relationship, recalls the shaming she faced because of her relationship status. “I was isolated by the neighbours in my apartment complex… when there was a theft at my place, nobody helped me. A neighbour even propositioned me just because I was not married to my partner and seemed ‘available’. The relationship later turned violent and even though my mother knew this, she blamed my ‘sexual appetite’ for choosing to live in,” she says.
“This type of ostracism is more pronounced for women. There is an accepted format of how women must live, love, and behave in society. The moment they ‘deviate’, they are targeted even by close family and friends,” adds Nandini, a 27-year-old media professional from Bengaluru who has been in a live-in relationship for a while.
The experiences of women like Usha and Nandini may make one wonder if live-in relationships have any legal restrictions in India. They don’t. “The Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and the right to life and personal liberty. The courts have also through many judgements confirmed the legality of these relationships. So nobody can say live-ins are illegal. Women in live-ins can claim maintenance and seek relief for domestic violence. But the stigma around such cohabitation is huge, and it is women who are blamed more than men if something goes wrong, as we have seen recently post the murder of Shraddha Walkar. So, accessing this right is not easy,” says advocate Lakshmi Sreedhar.
Shraddha Walkar’s murder by her live-in partner Aftab Poonawala and the gory details of the case highlight how lightly the law and order system takes intimate partner violence allegations by a woman, especially when she is unmarried. It was reported that Shraddha went to the police and filed a written complaint about two years prior to her death alleging violence from Aftab, even saying that she feared he might kill her. But her concerns were not investigated. After her murder, Union Minister Kaushal Kishore said that “educated girls who stay away from parents must register their marriage” than live with a male partner.
When women cannot escape systemic victim blaming even after death for exercising their legal freedoms, the window of safety is extremely narrow for those who choose to live with their relationship choices.
“The laws may be liberal, but it is not easy to live them. Look at the restrictions at Bengaluru’s Cubbon Park, for instance. All of them target public displays of affection, especially when coming from ‘unmarried couples’. There is clearly no legal issue here, but our collective mindset is morally conservative. In that case, what is the use of saying that laws are conducive?” says Nandini, pointing towards the question of whether progressive laws are followed by systemic checks and balances to ensure their implementation.
Manjari*, a 31-year-old bisexual woman who lives and works in Bengaluru, says that she was fairly comfortable about her live-in relationship with her male partner until the Shradhha Walkar case. “Now, I fear how the system may respond in case I report abuse. There is so much discussion about how women in live-ins spoil the ‘cultural fabric’ of the country post Shradhha’s passing that it makes me anxious,” Manjari says. She also adds that while her parents are accepting of her relationship, they feel concerned about the kind of violence she may be exposed to, especially in the context of the cultural vigilantism against women that is most often politically validated under India’s right-wing regime.
Lawyer and human rights litigant Sandhya Raju says that seeking redressal through law is hindered by prejudices against women in live-in relationships. “We have rights on paper, but at the end of the day we have to access them through the police and the courts which are still very much embedded within a conservative, patriarchal morality,” she points out.
She recalled a recent experience at a court of law in Kerala. “I went to court for a protection order under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act. I was asked to produce the woman’s marriage certificate. Technically, there is no need for this document when a woman reports violence. But this indicates that violence is taken seriously only when married women report it. Outside marriage, intimate partner violence is treated very conservatively even by the police and the courts. Their first instinct is to slut-shame the woman and not address the violence itself,” she says.
Sandhya observes that the police often assume guardianship when women report intimate partner violence. “They immediately ask if the woman’s parents know, and threaten to inform them. Otherwise, they slut-shame the woman for living with the man in the first place. I have also observed that as a society we have normalised domestic abuse. Women are told to ignore it and move on because people think such violence is normal. As a result, nobody takes a woman seriously even if she complains. In the case of an unmarried woman, things only get worse,” she says, stressing that only women who have some kind of political or social backing may be able to keep pushing for action, which is hardly the case with most women.
“For a woman traumatised by violence from her most intimate partner, it is too much to justify herself before a system that is reluctant to hear her and help her,” she adds.
Manjari says that being queer makes it more challenging to access help. “I feel quite anxious because if I were to report violence, I fear the police will put me under more stress because of my sexual identity. I have been in a violent relationship with a man earlier and I know that not everyone is violent, but since I have that trauma I feel if I were to come out queer before authorities while reporting intimate partner violence, I would be shunned all the more,” she shares.
She also points out that the kind of objections raised in the Supreme Court by the Union government in the marriage equality petitions demanding marriage rights for LGBTQIA+ persons adds to this anxiety. “They accelerate the fears of those who do not fall within traditional moulds of love or family. The law is implemented by the law and order system. When there is no sensitisation of those who are the first points of contact for a victim of abuse, what is the point of the law?” she asks.
Aparna*, who was living in with her partner in Hyderabad, says that despite men being the abusers in most reported cases of intimate partner violence, the blame still hangs on women, and that is also why these patterns never get reversed. “Men are seen as opportunistic, but the same opportunistic men also get a free pass. That is how normal we deem their behaviour to be,” she says.
Manjari adds that since most people grow up internalising marriage as the most ideal way of cohabiting, doing it differently involves a lot of push and pull. “Many men feel that they must make more effort only in the case of a wife because it is ‘permanent’. So dividing domestic responsibilities, feeling a sense of safety, and many other things need to be learnt. It has a lot to do with how men enjoy gender privilege in our society. So when they get into a live-in relationship, the entitlement continues, and when there is a conflict, they become violent or leave. This happens in marriages also, but only that they are more binding, so leaving is not as easy,” she says.
Chennai-based lawyer Manoj says that among his clients, he has seen that caste-based abuse becomes very pronounced in live-in relationships when conflict ensues, because of the nature of the relationship. “When the man is from a dominant caste, the moment a tiff occurs between the couple, the caste of the woman is brought into the picture to shame her identity and belittle her conduct. Frankly, I feel men in our country are not yet mature to conduct a relationship respectfully in the absence of it being binding. Live-ins are mostly concealed from family and friends, so many men look at it as a stop-gap arrangement for sex without commitment and accountability. Some men also extort money and abscond. The intersectional identities of the partners matter a lot while determining how the equation will go. We are still a patriarchal, casteist society and that does reflect in these equations, no matter how modern many of them seem to appear,” he says.
Sandhya elaborates that though it is good to see India’s Chief Justice DY Chandrachud making progressive remarks in the marriage equality petitions, we have so many regressive judges who are also appointed based on politics, enabling conservative attitudes towards love and relationships. “There is a political validation of such traditional views. This only complicates things because many men also feel they are right in staying patriarchal and violent,” she says.
She also adds that in the broader sense, whether it is a live-in or marriage, as long as respect is not internalised, it’s never going to give a woman any rights. “Everything is hinged on respect. Misogyny is normalised through jokes, casual takes, etc., and men grow up with all this ingrained. When asking why women are morally policed or treated differently, we must also ask if we train people, especially men, to unlearn their inherent biases, and this includes police officers and others in positions of power. If they allow their personal conditioning to supersede legality, it only takes us several steps backwards as a society,” she says.
Despite favourable laws, live-in couples are morally gatekept from engaging in mainstream social life in several ways. They feel like they have to constantly lie and live a dual life – one for others and one where they love who they chose to.
Sonia*, a young woman who has been living in with her partner in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, says that she is afraid to reveal the status of her relationship. “I still have to tiptoe around the issue and make up stories when my parents come to visit me. I really have to filter people out when I reveal my personal information because I know I will be judged. My partner and I have no issues telling others, but I feel vulnerable because being a woman I will be targeted more,” she elaborates.
Navi, who has been living with her partner for a few years in Karnataka, recalls how they had to give up many apartments because the landlords were willing to rent out only to married couples. “I remember our last landlord even told us that he was okay with our relationship status, but asked us not to tell anyone in the neighbourhood,” she says. Aparna agrees. “I was turned down many times by flat owners. Finally, I found an NRI landlord who was quite broad in his outlook and did not mind my live-in status. Many of my friends in the city have also had to lie that they were married, to get flats on rent. But since my partner and I look young for our age, we couldn’t pull that trick off!” she sighs.
Namitha, a psychologist practising in Bengaluru who is herself in an inter-faith live-in relationship, says that even in the professional scenario, she faces shaming for her relationship status, sometimes from relatives of her clients. “I once suggested to a client who was facing intimate partner violence to report it. Her husband then said that since I was unmarried, I was trying to lead her astray. He said that I was projecting my feminism on her and that my professional mental health advice on their marriage was not competent enough because I was in a live-in relationship,” Namitha recalls.
Advocate Lakshmi adds that even at the workplace when a woman says she has a live-in partner, she is looked down upon and treated as a subject of office jokes. “Sometimes, she is even seen as a bad employee. I had a colleague who went through a divorce and had to practically flee the workplace to avoid shaming. If a married woman feels this way, a woman with a live-in partner has no chance of getting by. In that case, if she feels unsafe in her relationship, who does she go to?” she asks.
Manjari says that this constant covering up takes away from the quality of the relationship. “All the lying affects the expression of love between the partners because a lot of your energies are drained in keeping up the lie and living this double life. Even though you are not doing anything wrong, you can’t really live the full relationship because people don’t really see live-ins as legitimate. Even companies don’t factor a live-in partner as a real partner in terms of health insurance or other benefits, so the system is constantly saying you have to comply if you want these benefits/safeguards. A lot of organic love is lost in the midst of this performance,” she elaborates.
She also says that though her parents are now comfortable with her relationship, they face embarrassment at family gatherings and social functions where they are asked to justify her choices. “The law may say many things in a progressive tone, but in reality we have to put on an act, and this really affects our mental health and the health of our relationships. When there is a law, there must also be an effort to ensure its implementation,” she explains.
The most common question that couples in live-in relationships face is – if you can live in like a married couple, why not marry? To Lakshmi, the answer is simple. For her, marriage changes her legal identity and she does not want that. “I am a single woman in my 30s. For a woman, marriage dictates what she can do and what she cannot. It changes her status on record and brings with it many additional gender roles. I simply want to maintain autonomy of identity. I am uncomfortable being called a ‘wife’,” she adds.
The question ‘why not marry’ in itself is a reflection of the collective conviction that marriage is better than any other kind of cohabitation. An important aspect that becomes very pronounced here is also the reduction of cohabitation to sexual activity vis a vis the correlation of marriage to a more meaningful relationship.
Manjari says that especially in the context of the marriage equality petitions, it is time that we imagine newer ways of cohabiting and understand that traditional labels cannot be the benchmark for determining the legitimacy of relationships. “It is our mindset, both personal and systemic, that needs to change. Even in a live-in, gender roles remain mostly intact. We have to navigate them. In privileged spaces as well, the wife will have to play so many roles. It is a compromise for a woman to marry, while men can conveniently remain unchanged and expect to be taken care of. Independent women are not comfortable with this system and their wish to decide how they want to live should not affect their right to love or cohabit with a partner,” she says.
Namitha says that women experience a breach of boundaries in marriages, and many younger women recognise it and are unwilling to give up their personal space. “All of us have our own triggers and childhood experiences that we seldom address. We do not have a culture of seeking therapy at any point. When such individuals who are repressed in many ways get into relationships, they form a codependent bond wherein emotional abuse becomes the norm. The expectation is that the partner, particularly the woman, must fix these issues for them. This is what women are told when they report violence as well – to adjust,” she explains.
Sandhya also says that laws are only one aspect of our social life. When it comes to what transpires in a group or a family or between two people, it is our collective conditioning that surfaces, adding that we must constantly question our moral edifice to ensure we evolve.
Though live-ins have no legal barriers, it is marriage that is systemically considered a legitimate form of consummating love. In the face of a pervasive patriarchal morality that rests at the heart of implementing personal liberties, laws simply fail to add any sense of security for those who trust them.
*Name changed
This reporting is made possible with support from Report for the World, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project.