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] Maharashtra had already passed a law requiring the registration of all marriages. In April 1999, Governor P. C. Alexander signed the Maharashtra Regulation of Marriage Bureaus and Registration of Marriages Act, 1998 into law. It created local registrars of marriages, which shall issue marriage certificates upon reception of memorandums of marriage filed by the spouses. The registrar may refuse to issue the license if the parties fail to meet the requirements to marry under the national law of their religion or community. The act provides for the registration of all marriages solemnized in the state irrespective of the religion, caste or creed of the parties. It does not explicitly ban same-sex marriages, and defines marriage simply as including remarriage. However, the act generally refers to married spouses as "husband and wife"; it defines the "parties" to a marriage as "the husband and wife whose marriage has been solemnized". [9]
Some same-sex couples have married in traditional marriage ceremonies, though the marriages lack legal status in Maharashtra. In December 2017, a same-sex couple, 43-year-old IIT Bombay engineer Hrishi Sathawane and his 35-year-old partner of Vietnamese origin known only as Vinh, were married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Yavatmal. The ceremony, which was attended by close friends and family members, involved an exchange of rings and garlands in accordance with Hindu custom. [10] In February 2019, two men, Vinodh Philip and Vincent Illaire, held a traditional marriage ceremony in Mumbai with the exchange of garlands and the wearing of a mangala sutra and toe rings as symbols of marriage. [11] In 2022, a lesbian couple, Dr. Paromita Mukherjee and Dr. Surabhi Mitra, were engaged in a private ceremony in Nagpur, though chose to have "big, fat, sea-side destination wedding" in Goa. The couple went public with the news of their wedding. [12] 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." [13] Following the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Supriyo v. Union of India , which held that the Indian Constitution does not require the legalisation of same-sex marriages but affirms that transgender people may marry opposite-sex partners, five transgender women married their male partners in Pimpri-Chinchwad in January 2025 under the Hindu Marriage Act. [14] Nevertheless, many gays and lesbians continue to marry partners of the opposite sex due to societal and family pressure. A 2009 report by the Humsafar Trust estimated that 70% of gay men in Mumbai and 80% in smaller cities across Maharashtra were married to women. [15]
In December 2023, Archbishop of Bombay Oswald Gracias responded to Fiducia supplicans , a declaration allowing Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples, [16] by calling it "an affirmation of our spirituality and a gift". Gracias said, "Our Indian mentality is so inclusive, understanding people of other religions and other faiths. All are searching for God, all are searching for the truth, all are searching for spirituality." [17]
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