Judge rules that sexual relationship is ‘marriage’
There is no problem if judges stick to the law and make observations that are relevant to the case at hand. But when they begin to sermonise and sound like pompous priests, mullahs and pandits in dealing with purely personal choices that individuals make, they need to be corrected. This is more so when these learned judges use their personalised version of the moral worldview to base verdicts on. For instance, Justice CS Karnan of the Madras High Court has in a recent case concluded that premarital sex between an unmarried man and woman amounts to “marriage”. Not just that, once the couple go their separate ways, the man cannot marry without obtaining a “divorce” from the woman with whom he had had the sexual relationship. Silly as these observations sound, they actually formed the basis for the High Court judge to order the man to pay a monthly maintenance allowance to the woman with whom he had lived and had two children. Now, there is no disputing the accountability of the man in such cases. Indeed, after having lived for years with the woman and raised a family of sorts, he could not be allowed to just walk away without being bound to some sort of monetary responsibility. But, as the learned judge was effectively dealing with a live-in relationship on which the Supreme Court has already given very clear directions, Justice Karnan could have limited himself to the legal framework that the apex court has laid down in such instances. Instead, he launched forth into a moral lecture and not just placed the live-in relationship on par with that of marriage but also decided that it was ‘marriage' itself. But again, there are laws governing marriage as well, and Justice Karnan would have done well to have taken them into consideration. Marriage laws are based on the concept of justice and not on abstract considerations of morality or spirituality, much less on personal inclinations of judges. If we now take Justice Karnan's approach to be true, then all sexual relationships between unmarried couples are ‘marriages', nothing less. Them, what happens to sexual relationships, or even live-in relationships, where one or both the partners are married to third partiesIJ Will also a casual sexual relationship between two unmarried persons render them as legally weddedIJ
There have been several instances in the past where learned judges have drifted from the core and dwelt into unconnected realms for no purpose other than to demonstrate their knowledge of literature, philosophy and moral science. Perhaps they have believed that such observations add ‘value' to their verdicts. But the danger of indulging in such self-aggrandisement is that judicial orders can, and often do, get swayed by meaningless observations. For that reason alone, if nothing else, Justice Karnan’s verdict must be subjected to deep questioning. The Supreme Court must visit this strange ruling and have the last word on the contentious matter.