{"id":35338,"date":"2023-05-12T09:09:29","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T03:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35338"},"modified":"2025-12-05T15:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T10:25:07","slug":"practice-of-polygamy-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/practice-of-polygamy-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Practice of Polygamy in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Practice of Polygamy in India<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Personal Laws<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Indian Penal Code (IPC)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Procedure of Filing a Complaint<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>A Crucial Exception to the Bigamy Law for Hindus<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the Assam government, an expert committee would be formed to examine the issue of practice of polygamy and will ban the practice through \u201clegislative action\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Practice of Polygamy in India:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Meaning:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Polygamy is the practice of having more than one married spouse (wife or husband).<\/li>\n<li>Traditionally, polygamy &#8211; mainly the situation of a man having more than one wife &#8211; was practised widely in India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Prevalence in India:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the <strong>National Family Health Survey-5 <\/strong>(2019-20), polygamy was 2.1% among Christians, 1.9% among Muslims, 1.3% among Hindus, and 1.6% among other religious groups.<\/li>\n<li>The highest prevalence of <strong>polygynous marriages<\/strong> (marriage in which two or more women share a husband) was in the<strong> Northeastern states<\/strong> with tribal populations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Laws governing the practice: <\/strong>The issue is governed <strong>both by personal laws and the Indian Penal Code<\/strong> (IPC).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Personal Laws:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Special Marriage Act 1954<\/strong> requires that at the time of marriage neither party has a spouse living.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Hindu Marriage Act 1955<\/strong> outlawed the practice of a man having more than one wife.\n<ul>\n<li>However, despite bigamy being an offence, <strong>the child born from the bigamous marriage would acquire the same rights<\/strong> as a child from the first marriage under the law.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs <\/strong>are also included under the Hindu Marriage Code.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1936<\/strong> had already outlawed bigamy.<\/li>\n<li>Marriage in Islam is governed by the <strong>Shariat Act 1937<\/strong>, which allows a Muslim man to have <strong>four wives.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>To benefit from the Muslim personal law, many men from other religions would convert to Islam to have a second wife.<\/li>\n<li>However, the Supreme Court (SC) held that <strong>religious conversion for the sole purpose of committing bigamy is unconstitutional.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This position was subsequently reiterated in the <strong>2000 judgement in Lily Thomas v Union of India.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Indian Penal Code (IPC):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>IPC Section 494<\/strong> (\u201cMarrying again during lifetime of husband or wife\u201d) penalises bigamy or polygamy with imprisonment up to 7 years and fine.<\/li>\n<li>This provision <strong>does not apply &#8211;<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>To a marriage<\/strong> which has been declared void by a court.<\/li>\n<li>If a spouse has been \u201ccontinually absent\u201d for the \u201cspace of seven years\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>For adulterous relationships that do not qualify as valid marriages under the law.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Section 495<\/strong> of the IPC protects the rights of the second wife in case of a bigamous marriage.\n<ul>\n<li>Whoever commits the offence (under Section 494) and has concealed the fact of the former marriage from the person with whom the subsequent marriage is contracted, shall be punished with <strong>imprisonment up to 10 years and fine<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"media\">\n<div data-oembed-url=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Kcwh2RPxqWE\">\n<div><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Kcwh2RPxqWE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Procedure of Filing a Complaint:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Generally, <strong>the first wife files a complaint <\/strong>that her husband has remarried.<\/li>\n<li>The court will have to look into <strong>whether the husband has entered into a legally valid second marriage.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The SC<\/strong> reiterated the legal position that the standard of proof must be of marriage performed as per customs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>A Crucial Exception to the Bigamy Law for Hindus:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Goa <\/strong>follows its own code for personal laws. So, a Hindu man in the state has the right to bigamy under specific circumstances mentioned in the <strong>Codes of Usages and Customs of Gentile Hindus of Goa.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>These circumstances include a case where the wife fails to conceive by the age of 25 or if she fails to deliver a male child by the age of 30.<\/li>\n<li>However, as per the Goa government, the provision for Hindus is virtually \u201c<strong>redundant<\/strong>\u201d and no one has been given the benefit of it since 1910.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) Which state\/s in India has\/have Uniform Civil Code?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Goa is the only state in India which has a uniform civil code. The Goa Family Law, is the set of civil laws, originally the Portuguese Civil Code, continued to be implemented after its annexation in 1961.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the Lily Thomas v Union of India case (2000)?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Court held that when a second marriage is contracted by a Hindu husband after conversion, he does not do so because of his conscience and that such a conversion is manifestly fraudulent. Therefore, it was laid down that such a marriage was void and invalid due to the violation of Article 21.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-law\/the-law-on-polygamy-among-religious-groups-in-india-8602908\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>The law on polygamy among religious groups in India<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polygamy is the practice of having more than one married spouse (wife or husband)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}