Divorce

Until the twentieth century, formal
divorce did not exist in traditional
Hindu society. This absence was
undoubtedly rooted in the Hindu perspective on marriage. Marriage was
seen as a permanent binding of husband and wife (or more precisely,
assimilating her identity to his), in a
way that ruled out a dissolving of the
marriage while both members were
still living. When a wife failed to bear
children, the husband would sometimes take a second wife, but the original marriage would remain intact.
Among the lower social classes, who
were often less concerned with maintaining group status through appropriate behavior, husbands and wives would
simply abandon their spouses for other
partners, but this was strictly forbidden
among “respectable” people.
Divorce is legally available in modern
India, but social and cultural factors
continue to weigh against it. Various factors make many women in unhappy
marriages reluctant to sue for divorce:
lack of support from their natal families,
who are often more interested in trying
to make the marriage work; the inability
to earn a living on their own; and the
near certainty that their husband’s families will be awarded custody of their
children, if they have any. Although attitudes are slowly changing, it is also still
difficult for divorced women to remarry.