Background
Marriage in India is governed under several federal laws. These laws allow for the solemnisation of marriages according to different religions, notably Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. Every citizen has the right to choose which law will apply to them based on their community or religion. These laws are the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 , [1] which governs matters of marriage, separation and divorce for Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs, the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872 , [2] and the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 . [3] In addition, the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936 and the Anand Marriage Act, 1909 regulate the marriages of Parsis and Sikhs. [4] [5] The Special Marriage Act, 1954 (SMA) allows all Indian citizens to marry regardless of the religion of either party. [6] Marriage officers appointed by the government may solemnize and register marriages contracted under the SMA, which are registered with the state as a civil contract. The act is particularly popular among interfaith couples, inter-caste couples, and spouses with no religious beliefs. [7] None of these acts explicitly bans same-sex marriage.
On 14 February 2006, the Supreme Court of India ruled in Smt. Seema v. Ashwani Kumar that the states and union territories are obliged to register all marriages performed under the federal laws. The court's ruling was expected to reduce instances of child marriages, bigamy, cases of domestic violence and unlawful abandonment. [8] Goa is one of only two states and union territories to have a unified marriage law, which dates from the Portuguese era. Every citizen is bound to the same law regardless of their religion. [9] However, article 1056 of the Goa Civil Code, largely based on Portuguese civil law, states that: "Marriage is a perpetual contract made between two persons of different sex with the purpose of legitimately constituting a family". [a] Marriages are solemnised before officials of the Civil Registration Services according to the conditions established in the law. Article 1058, which lists forbidden marriages such as marriages to relatives or to individuals under the marriageable age, does not explicitly ban marriages between people of the same sex. [11]
Some same-sex couples have married in traditional marriage ceremonies, though the marriages lack legal status in Goa. Reported in the media as "India's first gay marriage", designer Wendell Rodricks and his French partner, Jerome Marrel, entered into a civil solidarity pact (PACS), a French civil union scheme, in 2002. Rodricks later reported that the evening of the signing of the PACS 8 "scruffy-looking men" came to the couple's house in Colvale. Although he anticipated trouble, the men instead said "Landlord, you are getting married and not buying us a round of drinks?" Scroll.in reported this history in 2022 as an "early sign" on how Goans would "overcome prejudice to open [their] arms to the queer community". [12] In 2006, a local LGBT advocacy group stated that in the past two years they had conducted 25 same-sex marriages. "Fearing social stigma and discrimination, we had to conduct all these marriages in a clandestine manner", said a spokesman for the group. [13] In 2022, a lesbian couple, Dr. Paromita Mukherjee and Dr. Surabhi Mitra, orginially from Maharashtra, had a "big, fat, sea-side destination wedding" in Goa. The couple went public with the news of their wedding. [14] Mukherjee said, "We are over the moon with the love we are garnering. Somewhere we knew that the society and its aware people will celebrate our love with us." [15]
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