For most of India's history the State never asked who married whom. Kin, caste and community decided, and the family remembered. Today Gujarat became the second State, after Uttarakhand, to enact a uniform civil code: one civil law on marriage, divorce and succession for every religion, built on a committee report chaired by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Desai. The Act makes registration of a marriage compulsory within 60 days (penalty up to ₹10,000), prohibits bigamy, sets the marriage age at 21 for men and 18 for women, and requires live-in couples to register; ET reports up to three months' jail for not doing so. Scheduled Tribes and groups whose customs are protected by Part XXI of the Constitution are kept out.
So the news is legal, but the questions are sociological. What is a family in India: a kitchen, a property, or a set of obligations? Why does the north marry "far" and the south marry "near"? Why is marriage a sacrament to some and a contract to others, and what happens when the State writes both into one register? And on today's card 3.1, why are millions of women who farm still not "farmers" because the land passes through sons? This class answers those questions first, then returns to your file.
Concept Booster · Officer's Lens · History, Culture & Society · Class 1
Who belongs to whom? Family, marriage and kinship when the State starts keeping the register
कौन किसका है? जब राज्य रजिस्टर रखने लगे — परिवार, विवाह और नातेदारी
KnowThe sociologist's vocabulary of family, kinship and marriage, and the laws that now regulate each of them.
LinkHow the family connects to the uniform civil code, secularism, caste, tribal autonomy, women's work and demography.
FeelWhy a register entry means safety to one woman and surveillance to another couple.
DecideWrite the district plan an officer would write the week a new family code is notified.
1The file on your desk
URGENT · FOR DECISION
To: The Sub-Divisional Magistrate (designated Registrar under the Code)
Subject: District readiness for the Gujarat Uniform Civil Code, 2026: compulsory registration of marriages and live-in relationships
The Code received the President's assent on 17 September and was gazetted on 1 October; it comes into force on a date the State notifies. Your sub-division has three tribal talukas, a textile town with many migrant workers, and a mass-wedding season starting next month. The Collector wants your readiness plan.
On your table: (1) a request from a temple trust to register 140 couples at a mass wedding, with a note from the anganwadi supervisor that some brides look under 18; (2) a letter from a tribal panchayat leader asking whether "our people must now register under the new law"; (3) a woman of a Scheduled Tribe and a non-tribal man, married five years, asking which law governs them; (4) an inter-faith couple in the town, both adults, who want to register their live-in relationship but fear their families and a local outfit will learn of it; (5) a local organisation demanding that the police be given the list of all live-in registrations "for safety".
Put up your plan within 24 hours.
To: The Sub-Divisional Magistrate (designated Registrar under the Code)
Subject: District readiness for the Gujarat Uniform Civil Code, 2026: compulsory registration of marriages and live-in relationships
The Code received the President's assent on 17 September and was gazetted on 1 October; it comes into force on a date the State notifies. Your sub-division has three tribal talukas, a textile town with many migrant workers, and a mass-wedding season starting next month. The Collector wants your readiness plan.
On your table: (1) a request from a temple trust to register 140 couples at a mass wedding, with a note from the anganwadi supervisor that some brides look under 18; (2) a letter from a tribal panchayat leader asking whether "our people must now register under the new law"; (3) a woman of a Scheduled Tribe and a non-tribal man, married five years, asking which law governs them; (4) an inter-faith couple in the town, both adults, who want to register their live-in relationship but fear their families and a local outfit will learn of it; (5) a local organisation demanding that the police be given the list of all live-in registrations "for safety".
Put up your plan within 24 hours.
Read the class with this file in mind. At section 11 you will decide.
2The story
3The skeleton: the sociologist's toolkit and the law's
3a. Words a sociologist uses (learn them exactly)
| Term | Meaning, with an Indian example |
|---|---|
| Household vs family | The Census counts a household: "a group of persons who normally live together and take their meals from a common kitchen". A family is a web of kin and obligations that may span several households. Confusing the two produces the myth that the joint family is "dying". |
| Nuclear family | A couple and their unmarried children. |
| Joint / extended family | Two or more generations, or married brothers, sharing residence, property, worship or income. Its legal cousin is the Hindu Undivided Family and the Mitakshara coparcenary. |
| Kinship | Consanguineal (by blood) and affinal (by marriage) ties, organised by descent and residence. |
| Descent | Patrilineal (most of India) or matrilineal: the Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya, and historically the Nairs of Kerala, trace descent through women. |
| Residence | Patrilocal (bride moves to the husband's home, the north Indian norm) vs matrilocal. |
| Endogamy | Marrying within a group: caste, sub-caste, religion. It is the mechanism that reproduces caste across generations. |
| Exogamy | Marrying outside a group: the gotra, the clan, often the village. Both rules operate together: marry within the caste but outside the gotra. |
| Hypergamy / hypogamy | Anuloma: a woman marries "up"; pratiloma: she marries "down". Hypergamy feeds dowry, because the bride's family "pays" for status. |
| Sacrament vs contract | Classical Hindu marriage was a sacrament (samskara): indissoluble, a religious duty. Muslim marriage (nikah) is a civil contract with consent and mahr. The Special Marriage Act is a purely civil, secular form. |
3b. Irawati Karve's map: north marries far, south marries near
In Kinship Organisation in India (1953), Irawati Karve divided India into four kinship zones by marriage practice: northern, central, southern and eastern. The contrast that the exam loves is north vs south.
| Feature | Northern zone | Southern zone |
|---|---|---|
| Who may marry | Bride from families not related by blood; wide exogamy (gotra, often village) | Marriage among kin preferred: cross-cousin, and in some groups uncle–niece |
| Kin terms built on | Generation | Older vs younger kin (Karve's key insight) |
| The bride | Comes as a stranger to a distant home; weak natal support | Often marries into a known family; natal ties stay close |
| What follows | Strong hierarchy of wife-givers below wife-takers; space for dowry and hypergamy | Relatively more equal exchange between families |
Use the table as a model, not a rule: Karve herself showed regional variety, and the central zone mixes both patterns while the eastern zone shares features with tribal societies.
3c. What is actually changing
Form changes faster than function. Sociologists such as A.M. Shah (The Household Dimension of the Family in India) argued that large joint households were never the universal Indian norm: a joint household is often a phase in a family's life cycle that splits on the father's death or a son's marriage. I.P. Desai's study of a Gujarat town, Some Aspects of Family in Mahuva (1964), measured "jointness" by obligations rather than residence and found families living apart who still acted jointly. So a "nuclear" household in a city that sends money home, consults elders on marriages and shares a property dispute is still functionally joint.
What the surveys show. NFHS-5 (2019–21): 23% of women aged 20–24 married before 18, against 47% of women aged 45–49; the median age at first marriage for women aged 20–49 rose to 19.2 years. Women with a bank account rose from 53% (NFHS-4) to 78.6%; about 43% of women own a house or land alone or jointly. Marriage is getting later and women's financial identity is growing, but property still follows sons.
What has not changed. Endogamy. Most marriages are still arranged within caste and religion, which is why an inter-caste or inter-faith couple is a family crisis in many places and why the courts have had to protect them.
What the surveys show. NFHS-5 (2019–21): 23% of women aged 20–24 married before 18, against 47% of women aged 45–49; the median age at first marriage for women aged 20–49 rose to 19.2 years. Women with a bank account rose from 53% (NFHS-4) to 78.6%; about 43% of women own a house or land alone or jointly. Marriage is getting later and women's financial identity is growing, but property still follows sons.
What has not changed. Endogamy. Most marriages are still arranged within caste and religion, which is why an inter-caste or inter-faith couple is a family crisis in many places and why the courts have had to protect them.
3d. The legal skeleton
| Law / provision | What it does |
|---|---|
| Art 44 | "The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India." A Directive Principle (Part IV), not enforceable in court (Art 37). |
| List III, Entry 5 | Marriage and divorce; infants and minors; adoption; wills, intestacy and succession; joint family and partition; matters governed by personal law. Both Parliament and States legislate. |
| Art 254(2) | A State law repugnant to a Central law on a Concurrent subject prevails in that State if it gets the President's assent; Parliament may later override it. |
| Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 | s.5: monogamy, capacity to consent, ages 21/18, no prohibited degrees, no sapindas (unless custom permits). s.7: customary rites; with saptapadi the marriage is complete at the seventh step. s.8: registration; States may make it compulsory, but omission does not affect validity. s.2(2): does not apply to Scheduled Tribes unless the Centre notifies. s.29(2): customary divorce saved. |
| Special Marriage Act, 1954 | Civil marriage for any two persons regardless of religion; ages 21/18; notice to the Marriage Officer and 30 days for objections. |
| Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 | s.2: dowry is property given "in connection with the marriage" (mahr excluded). s.3: giving or taking, at least 5 years and fine of at least ₹15,000 or the dowry's value. s.4: demanding, 6 months to 2 years. s.8A: burden of proof on the accused. s.8B: Dowry Prohibition Officers. |
| BNS, 2023 ss.80, 85–86 | Dowry death (old IPC 304B) and cruelty by husband or relatives (old IPC 498A). |
| Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 | Child: male under 21, female under 18. s.3: a child marriage is voidable at the option of the party who was a child, by petition within two years of majority. s.12: void when the minor was taken, forced or trafficked. s.13: injunctions; s.15: offences cognizable and non-bailable; s.16: Child Marriage Prohibition Officers. |
| Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 | New s.6: a daughter is a coparcener by birth, with the same rights and liabilities as a son. |
| Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 | s.2(f): a "domestic relationship" includes a relationship in the nature of marriage, so a woman in a live-in relationship can seek protection, residence and maintenance orders. |
| Sixth Schedule, para 3(1) | District and Regional Councils (Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram) may make laws on inheritance of property, marriage and divorce, and social customs. |
| Art 371A(1)(a) | No Act of Parliament on Naga religious or social practices, Naga customary law and procedure, or ownership and transfer of land applies to Nagaland unless its Assembly so decides. |
4The fine print — what separates a topper from the rest
1. A register proves a marriage; it did not make one. Under the Hindu Marriage Act, ceremonies make a marriage and omission to register "shall in no way" affect validity. In Seema v. Ashwani Kumar (2006) the Supreme Court directed that marriages of all citizens, whatever their religion, be compulsorily registered, mainly to fight child marriage and bigamy and to protect wives' claims. Read any new State code to see what consequence it attaches to non-registration: a penalty is not the same as invalidity.
2. The HMA made the sacrament partly a contract. By adding monogamy, divorce and, later, mutual-consent divorce (s.13B: one year apart, then a 6–18 month wait), the 1955 Act turned an indissoluble samskara into a dissoluble legal union. Sociologists call this the "contractualisation" of marriage.
3. Live-in: legal is not the same as recognised. In S. Khushboo v. Kanniammal (2010) a three-judge bench quashed criminal complaints over an actor's remarks and held that adults living together or having pre-marital sex commit no offence. That says cohabitation is not a crime; it does not give live-in partners the rights of spouses.
4. Velusamy's four tests, Indra Sarma's eight guidelines. D. Velusamy v. D. Patchaiammal (2010): a "relationship in the nature of marriage" needs the couple to hold themselves out as spouses, be of legal age, be otherwise qualified to marry (including unmarried), and cohabit voluntarily for a significant period; a weekend together or a one-night stand is not enough. Indra Sarma v. V.K.V. Sarma (2013) added guidelines (duration, shared household, pooled resources, domestic arrangements, sexual relationship, children, socialisation in public, intention) and held that a woman who knowingly lived with a married man was outside the Act, while urging Parliament to protect such women.
5. Child marriage is voidable, not void. Except in the s.12 cases, a child marriage stands until the child party seeks annulment. A Bill to raise women's age to 21 (the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021) lapsed when the 17th Lok Sabha was dissolved in 2024. Gujarat's Code keeps 21/18.
6. The daughter's right is legal, the son's is still social. Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020, three judges): a daughter is a coparcener by birth, and the father need not have been alive on 9 September 2005. Yet card 3.1 shows that under a fifth of operational holdings in Maharashtra are in women's names. Law changed the rule; custom still moves the land.
7. "Uniform" already has exceptions, and they are constitutional. The HMA itself excludes Scheduled Tribes (s.2(2)); the Uttarakhand and Gujarat codes exclude them too; the Sixth Schedule lets councils legislate on tribal marriage and inheritance, and Article 371A shields Naga customary law. Pluralism is written into the Constitution, not merely tolerated by it.
8. No fundamental right to marry, but a right to choose a partner. In Supriyo Chakraborty (2023) the majority found no fundamental right to marry and left the Special Marriage Act as it is. Yet Shafin Jahan (2018) upheld an adult's choice of partner under Article 21, and Shakti Vahini (2018) directed States to protect couples from honour crimes. Both lines coexist: the State may define marriage; it may not stop adults from choosing each other.
5How the idea grew
23 Nov 1948The Constituent Assembly debates draft Article 35 (today's Article 44). Members opposed to a uniform code argue for religious freedom and community consent; defenders say women's rights need it. It stays a Directive Principle.
1951The Hindu Code Bill stalls; Ambedkar resigns from the Cabinet on 27 September, the Bill's failure among his reasons.
1953Irawati Karve publishes Kinship Organisation in India, mapping four kinship zones.
1954 → 1956The Special Marriage Act (1954) offers civil marriage; the Hindu Marriage Act (1955) and the Hindu succession, adoption and guardianship laws (1956) codify Hindu law in parts.
1961The Dowry Prohibition Act.
1985 → 1986Shah Bano: maintenance under Section 125 CrPC is a secular right for all women. Parliament responds with the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986; Danial Latifi (2001) later reads it to require a fair provision for her future.
1995Sarla Mudgal: a Hindu husband who converts to Islam and remarries commits bigamy; the Court urges a uniform civil code.
2005 → 2006Daughters become coparceners; the Domestic Violence Act recognises relationships "in the nature of marriage"; the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act is enacted; Seema v. Ashwani Kumar orders compulsory registration.
2010 → 2013Khushboo (cohabitation is no offence), Velusamy (four tests), Indra Sarma (eight guidelines).
2017 → 2018Shayara Bano strikes down instant triple talaq (3:2); Puttaswamy makes privacy a fundamental right; Shafin Jahan and Shakti Vahini protect choice of partner; the Law Commission's 2018 consultation paper says a UCC is "neither necessary nor desirable at this stage" and suggests reforming each personal law instead.
2020 → 2023Vineeta Sharma settles daughters' coparcenary rights; Supriyo Chakraborty declines to read same-sex marriage into the Special Marriage Act.
2025 → 2026Uttarakhand's UCC takes effect on 27 January 2025 with compulsory live-in registration; Gujarat's Code gets assent on 17 September 2026 and is gazetted on 1 October.
6One issue, six lenses
Polity & law
Personal law is a Concurrent subject, so a State may write its own family code and protect it with Article 254(2). But Article 44 speaks of "the territory of India", and Parliament keeps the last word. The legal question is not only "may a State do this" but "will rules now differ at every border".Carry: concurrency, assent, and uniformity within vs across States.
Social justice · women's rights
Codification has mostly helped women: monogamy, divorce, maintenance, coparcenary rights, registration as proof. But a woman's rights on paper depend on the family that controls the land and the marriage. Patrilocal residence and hypergamy weaken her bargaining power; dowry turns her into a transaction.Carry: equality in law vs equality in the kitchen and the field.
Governance
Registration is the State's way of seeing families: it makes child marriage, bigamy and abandonment visible. But every register needs officers trained to protect its data, deadlines people can meet, and grievance routes. A register that frightens couples drives marriages back underground.Carry: legibility helps only if trust comes with it.
Economy
The family is an economic unit: it pools income, sends migrants out, holds land, and runs on women's unpaid work. Card 3.1 shows rural women doing farm work without title. Dowry is a transfer of wealth that also distorts the value placed on daughters.Carry: unpaid care and property as the hidden economics of kinship.
Ethics
Autonomy (adults choose whom to live with) meets care (the State protects the vulnerable partner). Proportionality, from Puttaswamy, is the bridge: is the intrusion lawful, needed, the least intrusive, and balanced against the harm it prevents?Carry: autonomy, care, proportionality.
Citizen & nation · pluralism
India holds Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsi, tribal and secular family laws at once. A nation can be united by equal rights without being identical in every ritual; it can also be divided if reform is felt as one group's law imposed on another. The test is consent and equal dignity.Carry: unity in rights, diversity in custom.
7From paper to village — the implementation chain
1
Legislature and President enact the code; the State notifies the date of commencement and the rules. Breaks if: rules are unclear on who is excluded, or on mixed couples.
2
Registrar (SDM / designated officer) receives the marriage memorandum or live-in statement. Breaks if: offices are far from villages and the 60-day clock runs out for the poor.
3
Verification of age, existing marriage and tribal status. Breaks if: no birth certificate, so age is guessed; or a caste certificate is treated as a moral judgment.
4
Data custody: records kept, shared only as the law allows. Breaks if: lists leak to families, outfits or anyone "for safety".
5
Protection officers: Child Marriage Prohibition Officer, Dowry Prohibition Officer, DV Protection Officer, police. Breaks if: each works alone and a mass wedding slips through.
6
The family itself uses the certificate to claim maintenance, inheritance, a widow's pension. Breaks if: the woman never gets a copy. A register protects only the person who can show it.
8Who wants what
| Stakeholder | Wants | Fears | Their fair point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Married women | Proof of marriage, maintenance, a share in property | Being abandoned with no record | Registration is the first document of a wife's rights. |
| Live-in couples | To be left alone, or protected if one partner leaves | Their families or vigilantes learning of them | Privacy is a fundamental right; choice of partner is protected. |
| Religious communities | Their personal law respected | Reform felt as imposition | Article 25 and the Assembly's own debate stressed consent. |
| Tribal communities | Customary law and councils to stay | Being folded in by stealth | The Sixth Schedule, Article 371A and the codes' own exclusions protect them. |
| Reformers and women's groups | Equal rights in every family law | Uniformity in name, inequality in practice | Gender justice, not sameness, is the goal. |
| The district administration | A workable, trusted system | Penalties it cannot enforce fairly | A law is as good as its last-mile office. |
9The human side — EQ, citizen first, nation first
Three people at your counter. A young widow who never registered her marriage is told by her in-laws that she has no claim on the house. For her, a register would have been a shield. An inter-faith couple, both adults, fear that their names in a government file will reach a family that has already threatened them. For them, the same register feels like a spotlight. A tribal elder worries that a law made in the capital will dissolve the council that has settled marriages in his village for generations. For him, uniformity sounds like erasure.
An officer with emotional intelligence does not tell any of them they are wrong to feel what they feel. He explains, in their language, what the law requires of them and what it does not. He tells the elder plainly that the Code does not apply to Scheduled Tribes. He tells the couple who can see their record and who cannot. He makes sure the widow's daughter does not face the same day.
Citizen first: the register exists for the person registered, not for the curious. Nation first: a family law that every community can see as fair binds the nation together; one that any community sees as aimed at it divides. The officer's tone at the counter is where that is decided.
An officer with emotional intelligence does not tell any of them they are wrong to feel what they feel. He explains, in their language, what the law requires of them and what it does not. He tells the elder plainly that the Code does not apply to Scheduled Tribes. He tells the couple who can see their record and who cannot. He makes sure the widow's daughter does not face the same day.
Citizen first: the register exists for the person registered, not for the curious. Nation first: a family law that every community can see as fair binds the nation together; one that any community sees as aimed at it divides. The officer's tone at the counter is where that is decided.
10The concept web — where this sits in your mind
UCC & Article 44 — the family is the subject of the code; today's Gujarat Act and Uttarakhand's are the federal route to it.
Secularism — the Indian model keeps "principled distance": the State may reform religious family law (Hindu Code, Shayara Bano) without becoming hostile to religion.
Caste & endogamy — caste survives through marriage rules; inter-caste marriage is the hardest test of caste's decline, which is why honour crimes follow it.
Federalism — Concurrent List Entry 5 plus Article 254(2) let States experiment; Parliament can harmonise.
Women's status & work — card 3.1: women farm, men own; dowry, coparcenary rights and unpaid care all run through the family.
Tribal customary law — Sixth Schedule para 3, Article 371A, HMA s.2(2): pluralism protected by the Constitution itself.
Demography — later marriage (NFHS-5) lowers fertility and improves maternal health; family form shapes ageing and care of the elderly.
Privacy & choice — Puttaswamy (2017), Shafin Jahan (2018): the limit on how far any register may reach into a home.
On the website, each of these opens its own class as the library grows. Each new class adds lines to this web, which is what "interlinking" means.
11Your decision — back to the file
You are the SDM and designated Registrar. Choose your readiness plan:
The note an officer would write
1. The Gujarat Uniform Civil Code, 2026 has received assent (17 Sept) and been gazetted (1 Oct); it will come into force on the date the State notifies. Preparation must begin now.
2. Awareness first: the 60-day registration window to be publicised in Gujarati and local dialects; camps at panchayat offices; a copy of the certificate handed to both spouses, especially the wife.
3. Mass wedding: the organisers to submit age proof in advance; the Child Marriage Prohibition Officer and anganwadi staff to attend; any under-age case to be stopped under the PCM Act, 2006 (injunction under s.13 if needed).
4. Tribal talukas: the Code does not apply to members of Scheduled Tribes. Village meetings to say so clearly. The case of the ST woman married to a non-ST man is referred to the Law Department for a written clarification; no coercive step meanwhile.
5. Live-in registrations: records confidential; disclosure only as the Code and rules require. The demand to share lists with police is declined. Couples reporting threats to get protection under the Shakti Vahini (2018) directions.
6. Submitted for approval.
12How the exam asks it
| Paper | How this concept serves you |
|---|---|
| Prelims | Karve's zones; matrilineal groups; HMA s.2(2), s.5, s.7, s.8; PCMA voidable vs void; Dowry Act penalties; Entry 5 of List III; Art 371A; Sixth Schedule para 3. |
| GS1 — Society | Changing family structure, marriage and kinship, women's role, effects of urbanisation and globalisation on family, caste through endogamy. |
| GS2 — Polity, social justice | Article 44 and federalism; vulnerable sections (women, children); laws and institutions for their protection. |
| GS4 — Ethics | Autonomy vs care; privacy; the officer's dilemma in section 11. |
| Essay | "The family is the first school of citizenship"; "Love, law and the State". |
| Interview | "Should the State register live-in relationships? Answer as the officer who must keep the register." |
Trap: "The Hindu Marriage Act applies to all Hindus including members of Scheduled Tribes." — False; s.2(2) excludes STs unless the Centre notifies.
Trap: "A Hindu marriage not registered under s.8 is invalid." — False; omission does not affect validity.
Trap: "Every child marriage is void under the 2006 Act." — False; it is voidable at the child party's option, void only in s.12 cases.
Trap: "D. Velusamy (2010) laid down eight guidelines for live-in relationships." — False; Velusamy gave four conditions; Indra Sarma (2013) gave the eight guidelines.
Trap: "Mahr is dowry under the Dowry Prohibition Act." — False; s.2 excludes dower or mahr under Muslim personal law.
Trap: "Karve divided India into north and south kinship zones." — Incomplete; she identified four: northern, central, southern, eastern.
Mains practice 1 (GS1)
“The Indian family has changed more in its form than in its functions.” Discuss. (10 marks, 150 words)Model approach
Directive — Discuss: examine both sides and conclude. Introduction: distinguish household (common kitchen, as the Census counts it) from family (a web of obligations). Body: form has changed: smaller households, migration, later marriage (NFHS-5), more women with bank accounts. Functions persist: marriage arranged by kin, remittances, care of elders, property held jointly; A.M. Shah's life-cycle view, I.P. Desai's Mahuva study. Some functions have shifted: education, welfare and credit move to the State and market; legal rights (coparcenary, DV Act) change power within the family. Value addition: card 3.1: women's work recognised outside the family before ownership inside it. Diagram: a two-column "form / function" chart. Conclusion: the family is adapting, not dissolving; policy should support care (elderly, children) rather than assume the joint household will provide it.Mains practice 2 (GS1/GS2)
“Registering marriages protects women; registering live-in relationships may protect them or police them.” Critically examine. (15 marks, 250 words)Model approach
Directive — Critically examine: weigh merits and dangers, then judge. Introduction: Gujarat (2026) and Uttarakhand (2025) codes; Seema v. Ashwani Kumar (2006). Body: marriage registration: proof for maintenance, inheritance, a check on child marriage and bigamy. Live-in registration: may help a deserted partner (the gap Indra Sarma flagged) and children; but adults have not asked for recognition, privacy is a fundamental right (Puttaswamy), data can reach hostile families, and penalties may push couples to hide. Value addition: PWDVA s.2(f) already protects women in relationships "in the nature of marriage" without registration; Velusamy's tests. Conclusion: make registration a right with strong confidentiality and protection, apply the proportionality test, and judge the law by whether the weakest partner is safer.13Check yourself
1. How does the Census define a household, and why does it matter for the "decline of the joint family" debate?
Answer
Persons who normally live together and eat from a common kitchen. A family can span several households, so counting households overstates the decline of jointness.2. Name Karve's four kinship zones and one north–south contrast.
Answer
Northern, central, southern, eastern. The north avoids marriage among blood kin and practises wide exogamy; the south prefers cross-cousin (and some uncle–niece) marriage.3. Give one example each of endogamy and exogamy operating together in north India.
Answer
Marry within the caste (endogamy) but outside the gotra and often the village (exogamy).4. Is a child marriage under the 2006 Act void? Within what time can it be challenged?
Answer
Voidable at the option of the party who was a child (void only in s.12 cases); petition within two years of attaining majority.5. What did Vineeta Sharma (2020) settle?
Answer
A daughter is a coparcener by birth under the amended s.6; her father need not have been alive on 9 September 2005.6. What are Velusamy's four conditions?
Answer
Holding out as spouses; legal age to marry; otherwise qualified to marry, including unmarried; voluntary cohabitation for a significant period (in a shared household).7. Which constitutional provisions protect tribal family custom from a general code?
Answer
Sixth Schedule para 3(1) (councils legislate on marriage, divorce, inheritance, social customs) and Article 371A for Nagaland; statutes like HMA s.2(2) and the State codes also exclude STs.8. As SDM, why must you refuse to share the live-in list with the police on an outfit's demand?
Answer
Privacy is a fundamental right (Puttaswamy, 2017) and choice of partner is protected (Shafin Jahan, 2018); disclosure is lawful only as the Code and rules provide. Protection is given to couples who ask for it, not by exposing them.“Know it, link it, feel it, decide it.”
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