Living In Living Out

Marriages, they say, are decided in heaven. Some are arranged and some are love, there are other variants too like arranged “cum” love OR love “cum” arranged. Then came the inter-caste weddings where two people from different castes get married with the consent of the elders. With the passage of time, where a person’s confidence & commitment towards his/her work has gone higher at the same time their courage to get into a relationship and a commitment to carry it on forever has diminished. People are not ready to take an added responsibility of having a family yet, they do not wish to give up on the happiness thereof, hence, the concepts like having no children with the mutual consent of both the spouses or that of living-in an open relationship without any responsibilities have developed over a period of time.

Aditi, a small town girl with a broad thinking fell in love with her schoolmate Rohan. They both decided that marriage would happen only after they would have finished their masters, which would still take 5 years. As the first year into the relationhsip passed, they felt they were much closer and loved each other more by every day. They decided to do their masters in Pune, away from their families so that they could live-in together. They both managed to get admission in one of the most popular colleges in Pune. They set a small one BHK appartment of their own and started living together.

The concept of “togetherness” is changing and marriage is not the only option for two people to stay along as a family. With the Supreme Court approvals, a man and a lady can stay-in with each other as a husband and wife without getting bonded in the institution of marriage – “Live-In-Relationship” or “relationship in the nature of marriage” as it is widely known. In such cases the couple can claim to be one of such kinds only if they match the parameters for live-in couples as laid by the Supreme Court which are as under:

1.        The couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses.

2.       They must be of legal age to marry.

3.       They must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a ‘significant period of time’. (The Bench underlined the words “for a significant period of time” without specifying any time period).

4.        The couple must have lived together in a “shared household”, as defined in Section 2(s) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005

As time would show, they realised how different they were. In the very first month, they had so many arguments that they didn’t have throughtout their one year of “courtship”. Yet, love held them close. They would try to forgive each other and move ahead but they never forgot. Their flat owner and the people in their appartment took them to be young, newly married couple, as they had managed to convince them. Two years passed by and they both completed masters. Aditi applied for a job and Rohan decided to enjoy his college life a little more. Their paths seperated, dis-agreements changed to fights and the ugliness took over their love. Rohan used to find Aditi dominating as she was the one earning and Aditi would find Rohan less considerate towards her. Slowly, the drift became larger. Aditi became a workoholic and Rohan started feeling neglected. During this time, Rohan came closer to his classmate Amisha. They became very good friends and none of them came to know when this friendship became physical. They enjoyed each other’s company throughout the day, and when Rohan had to go back to his appartment at night to Aditi, his heart would pound harder, he knew he was doing something very wrong. Finally, the day came when skies broke on Aditi. She had had an idea of what might be cooking behind her back, but she never thought it could be so grave.

Rohan confronted her about everything. She was broken to pieces and din’t know how to react or what to say. Rohan kept saying he still loved her but he also loved Amisha. Aditi decided to walk out of their lives but Rohan would’nt let her do that and things started getting ugly. Aditi completely lost it one day and abused Amisha and Rohan publicly. Rohan was shocked by such behavior and left the house unaware of the fact that Aditi was pregnant. She was torn apart and had no place to go, she got an abortion done. Rohan kept calling her all day long but she didn’t repsond, finally he came to see her and was into tears after knowing what had happened. They part their ways and started living without each other. Amisha was just a part of it, she vanished in thin air.

Time went by, Rohan and Aditi started missing each other badly. In the meanwhile Rohan bagged a job with a reputed company and started earning handsomely. He called Aditi after 6 months of their break up and they decided to meet. He proposed her for marriage and Aditi said she needed time. Rohan tried his best to coax her and he won. The families were informed and the dates were fixed. Rohan and Aditi let the past go by and started a new life… But, we do not know if they lived happily ever after.

Now the question that arises in our minds is that, Is our society really ready to accept the concept so unconventional. Although, live-in-relationships are not new in our societies, they are more open, accepted and respected now than in earlier times. The name given to such a relationship earlier was “Maître Karar” or an agreement of friendship wherein two people of opposite gender promise to live together as friends and take care of each other. But, even though a couple mutually agrees on happiness of this kind, do the families and the society at large still respect and love them as much as they would have if it was a “marriage”?

And even if it is accepted, do they live happily ever after, the way they might have pictured it? Hence, before taking a step so major, both the cocnerned people should check out all the positives as well negatives of such an arrangement to avoid any mental stress.