A High Court has recently ruled that such a relationship is ‘morally and socially unacceptable’

An open economy and access to technology and the internet not only broaden people’s minds but also change how they look at relationships; like ties between a man and a woman that are deemed to be outside of familial, social and cultural contexts, that bring with it no obligations and no responsibility to the people in that relationship. The live-in relationship is one such where a couple lives separately outside of matrimony, often without sanction from their family or society at large. It happens with the condition that there are no conditions upon either the man or the woman. It begins when they are living together. It ends when they walk out. It is neither sin nor a crime though it is called ‘living-in sin’ in a country where the social institution of marriage is considered the bulwark of legal, ethical and moral relationship between a man and a woman. The emergence of individualisation in a liberalised world has catapulted live-ins to a preferred level of urban existence. Those who are highly individualistic prefer a no-holds-barred relationship, like live-in. Those who are sceptical about a marriage working prefer to live as common law partners. The political and biological freedoms sprouting out of the feminist movement and economic empowerment of women have encouraged them to see live-ins as a platform with equal footing as their male partners. Even bisexual relationships end up in a live-in silo, the partners protecting each other from the orthodoxy of society.

It is in this context that a recent decision by a single-judge Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court describing the live-in relationship as morally and socially unacceptable comes as a surprise. The Bench of Justice HS Madaan was hearing a petition filed by a 19-year-old woman from Uttar Pradesh and a 22-year-old man from Punjab, currently in an “inter-caste” live-in relationship and seeking protection of their lives and liberty from the woman’s family. The judge dismissed the petition saying: “As a matter of fact, the petitioners in the garb of filing the present petition are seeking seal of approval on their live-in relationship, which is morally and socially not acceptable and no protection order in the petition can be passed.” For the record, a live-in relationship is not illegal in India. The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment in the S Khushboo vs Kanniammal case of 2010, stated that a live-in comes within the ambit of the right to life under Article 21, that live-ins are permissible and it is not illegal for two consenting adults living together. In a 2013 judgment in the Indra Sarma vs VKV Sarma case, the apex court said the decision to marry or not marry to have a heterosexual relationship is personal, adding that a live-in is neither a crime nor a sin even though it may not be socially acceptable in India. Justice Madaan was obviously aware of these rulings, for he never said the live-in was legally unacceptable; he stressed on social unacceptability to dismiss the petition.