Interfaith marriage is lawful even without the need to convert. As per Section 5 of the Special Marriage Act, when a marriage is intended to be solemnised under the Act, the parties to the marriage are required to send a notice to the marriage officer. The Act allows people to get married without giving up their religion.
However, in most interfaith marriages, one person ends up converting to the religion of the other. Why is this so?
In November 2020, a Muslim man and his Hindu partner sent a notice to the marriage officer in a Gujarat district, as required under the law. A ruckus was caused and the couple was detained at the Karanj police station for some hours. The woman submitted that her family was resisting her choice to marry her partner and that the community was also raising objections to her marrying outside her faith.
There are several cases where people associated with right-wing groups harass couples who want to enter into interfaith marriages.
It’s not only conservative persons – who do not want to be ostracised by their religious community – but even those with modern liberal values opt to convert to their partner’s religion. This is done to bypass this procedural mischief of having to notify in advance. And that’s why, often, couples decide that one of them – mostly the woman – converts to the religion of the other and get married.
They are of the opinion that once the marriage is done, the families will have no option but to accept the couple’s decision. However, in many cases, even that doesn’t prevent the families from interfering or attempting to exercise their authority over the desire of two individuals to live together.
When Shejin, a Muslim, married 26-year-old Jyotsna, a Christian nurse, the woman’s family claimed ‘love jihad’ was at play. They even issued a habeas corpus petition. (An order issued by the court to a person who has allegedly detained another person, to produce the body of the latter before it.) When the court heard the woman, it turned out that she did not want to meet her parents, and that she had married out of her own will.
This story was originally published in thewire.in . Read the full story here