Exploring the Trends in Marriage Law in India

Abstract

In this essay, family reform was an issue for minorities in contact with foreigners in the first half of the century, but not until revolutionaries left the cities in the late 1920s. Even then, pressure for change was weak, constrained by the need for political support from a conservative male farmer. In the opening paragraph, "Man's supremacy over woman has been abolished"—a political commitment that many women in the West have yet to achieve. The new Marriage Act not only places children under the same financial obligations as in traditional society, but also adds a generation exempted from the 1950 Marriage Act. But it breaks with tradition and extends this duty to the younger generation. Nevertheless, the Communists promulgated the first law after the revolution. Although the Marriage Act of 1950 applied only to parents, the new birth control program created serious problems for couples who had a daughter. Unless the woman and her husband are forced to support her parents and his parents, her parents face an uncertain old age. If daughters can (and should) fulfill the same functions as sons, the calamity of giving birth to a girl child will be somewhat reduced.