Does the institution of marriage continue to be sacred in Indian society? Comment. (2020)
For Émile Durkheim, the sacred is what is set apart and protected by prohibitions. Classical Hindu marriage fitted this closely. It was one of the sixteen sanskaras, sealed by saptapadi before the sacred fire, indissoluble, and aimed at dharma, praja and rati. In K. M. Kapadia’s account (Marriage and Family in India, 1955), it bound the couple, their lineages and their ancestors. Whether this sanctity survives needs a two-sided answer.
Evidence that marriage remains sacred
- Ritual core intact. Most marriages still follow religious rites. Muslim nikah, though formally a civil contract with mahr, is also framed as a religious duty. Christian marriage is a sacrament. Rituals have grown more elaborate with affluence, not less.
- Law still upholds sanctity. In Dolly Rani v. Manish Kumar Chanchal (2024), the Supreme Court held that a Hindu marriage without the required ceremonies is invalid, and called it a samskara, not a “song and dance” event or a commercial transaction.
- Near-universal and durable. Almost everyone marries, and divorce is rare. Separation still carries stigma, especially for women.
- Sacred boundaries policed. Caste endogamy and gotra exogamy are treated as inviolable. In a Pew survey (2019–20), 64% of Indians said it is very important to stop women marrying into other castes. Khap panchayats and honour killings defend these boundaries, which shows the collective sacredness of marriage is still actively enforced. Uma Chakravarti’s “Brahmanical patriarchy” explains why: women’s marriage guards caste purity.
Evidence of desacralisation
- From sacrament to contract. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 banned bigamy and allowed divorce, and mutual-consent divorce came in 1976. In Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan (2023), the Supreme Court allowed dissolution for irretrievable breakdown. A sacrament that can be dissolved has become partly a contract.
- Individual choice and companionship. Education, urban jobs and later marriage (only 20.1% of women aged 20–24 married before 18 in NFHS-6, 2023–24) shift the goal from lineage to personal fulfilment. This is Anthony Giddens’s “pure relationship”.
- Commercialisation. A wedding market estimated at about $130 billion (Jefferies, 2024) and 6,156 dowry deaths recorded by the NCRB in 2023 show the money nexus. M. N. Srinivas (Some Reflections on Dowry, 1984) tied modern dowry to the cash economy and hypergamy.
- Alternatives recognised. Live-in relationships are protected under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and Uttarakhand’s UCC (2025) registers them. The Madras High Court (2025) recognised queer “chosen families”, while Supriyo (2023) left same-sex marriage to Parliament.
Assessment
The sacred has shifted, not vanished. In ritual it is performed more lavishly than before. In norms it has moved from indissolubility to conditional permanence. Its most rigid remnant is caste endogamy rather than the couple’s bond. Patricia Uberoi (Family, Kinship and Marriage in India, 1993) shows Indian marriage is continually reshaped by law, ideology and the state, so sacredness is itself being redefined.
Conclusion
Marriage in India remains sacred in form and in its community boundaries, but is increasingly contractual in substance for educated urban groups. The better description is selective secularisation: rites are kept, exit is allowed, and caste endogamy stays the most closely guarded element.