The Freethought Party of India (FPI) organised a seminar on the ‘Importance of love marriage in India’ on last Saturday with Madam Swapna Bijayini, co-founder of AMOFOI presiding over it. She condemned the practice of arranged marriage.
FPI general secretary B Ramchandra CST Voltaire cited a few cases of unhappiness caused to couples because of the caste-creed-status driven practice of endogamous arranged marriage.
He cited numerous cases concerning the plight of several women including hundreds marrying with NRIs which ended up in failures.
The ‘abandoned’ young women have become victims of endogamous marriage engineered by unscrupulous parents. So in the light of all these, Voltaire pleaded that all marriages be ‘love-centric’ and ‘priest-less love marriage’ be made the only mode of marriage in India in order to save the honour and dignity of both young men and women involved.
Two pairs of lovers such as Sagar Swain (24), Khallikote, Ganjam and Sulochana Biswal, Beguniapada PS, Ganjam and Krishnakanta Singh (25), Hirakud, Sambalpur and Sarika Dalai, Baidyanathpur, Boudh, underwent priest-less marriage by exchange of garlands on the occasion. Bijayini pleaded that there should be offices for free registration of love marriage at panchayat level.