Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 16: Though it has no legal sanctity under the Hindu Marriage Act, a man and two women he has married have reached an “agreement” to live peacefully but separately.
The incident of Gurugram, near Delhi, has raised questions about the future of the Indian society. A man and two women, including his first wife, have decided to live peacefully in two separate houses by dividing three days each of a week between them and also with the liberty to the man to spend the seventh day with the woman of his choice. The legal practitioners termed the “agreement” between them illegal as per Hindu law.
According to Harish Diwan, a lawyer associated with the family court in Gwalior city, the story of the two women and a man, who is an engineer, came to light when the man again entered into wedlock with a female colleague in Gurugram after he left his wife in Gwalior during the COVID-19 pandemic.
His first marriage took place in 2018 to a Gwalior-based woman and they lived together for two years. During COVID, he sent his wife to her parents’ home and went back to Gurugram, he said.
When he did not return to take his legally wedded wife, she grew suspicious and went to his Gurugram office. She learnt that he had married a colleague and a girl was also born during the period, Harish Diwan said.
The woman fought with the man publicly and protested in the office over his second marriage. She then approached a family court in Gwalior for justice, he said. Later, her husband was summoned to Gwalior. Despite attempts to counsel him, the man refused to leave the second woman, Harish Diwan said.
His wife as well as the second woman were counselled but they were not ready to understand, he said. Later, the trio entered into an agreement according to which the man will spend three days of a week with his wife and another three with the second woman he allegedly married, with the liberty to live with the woman of his choice on Sunday, Diwan said.
He provided a flat each to his wife as well as the other woman in Gurugram and also agreed to share his salary equally with them as per their agreement, Harish Diwan said.
When asked whether this agreement has any legal sanctity, Harish Diwan said, “This agreement was done between three of them with mutual consent. Neither the family court nor the councillor has any role in it.” “In fact, the three were categorically told that they are Hindu and as per Hindu law, this agreement between them is illegal. As per the law, a Hindu man cannot marry another woman until he divorced his first wife in a legal manner, but they decided to go ahead with their pact,” Harish Diwan added.