DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WIFE & GIRL FRIEND

Live-in, then walk out? Not so fast, dude!
Recent legal developments may make life easier for female live-in partners. DTbrings to you the debate on the social implications...

   What’s the difference between a wife and a girlfriend? About 15 kg’, goes the joke. That might be all, if recent recommendations made to the women and child development ministry are anything to go by. Aimed at giving greater protection against exploitation to live-in partners, the recommendations, made by the National Commission for Women, promise a fairer deal to women who have been wronged, and also give them a legal status almost as good as that of a wife. DT decodes how the earlier changes in the law and recent developments are making it, legally, very much a woman’s world.

THE LEGALESE

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was also amended to include protection for live-in partners from abuse. This time, the NCW has recommended that other sections of the law be changed to give greater protection to livein partners in case their men leave them without any financial support. They have recommended that a live-in partner get maintenance if she can produce sufficient evidence of a ‘long-term’ relationship, and her status be on par with that of a wife. They have also recommended that adultery should no longer be grounds for denying maintenance.

THE GREY AREAS

Many agree that there are loopholes in these recommendations. If a live-in partner is as good as a wife, what about the wife? And won’t this encourage extra-marital relationships and discourage marriage? “Yes, it’ll simply discourage people from getting married,” says Iggy, a model and DJ. Others also say that this could lead to misuse of the law. “Misuse can happen both ways,” says actor Narayani Shastri. “Men cheat on their wives and get away with it, so if people have to trouble each other, they will do it. But yes, there absolutely is scope for these laws to be misused.” Agrees emcee and dancer Shivani Wazir Pasrich, “There is no clear right and wrong here. I don’t even know how many women will be able to use these laws, as there’s a lot of ambiguity. Being a woman, I’m inclined to say good things, but the implications are scary.”
   Many also say that it should not be a legal given that women in live-ins have to depend on the man for money. “Protection against abuse, yes, I can understand that. But which self-respecting woman in a live-in would want to depend on a man’s money?” asks Iggy. “If a woman is liberated enough to enter into a live-in relationship voluntarily, she should be able to stand on her own two feet,” agrees Narayani. “She’s going into it with her eyes open, after all.”
And, they all ask, how long, exactly, is a “long-term” relationship? “How can you quantify relationships like that?” says Iggy. “Issues like how long is long enough to call a relationship a live-in need to be sorted out,” says designer Poonam Bhagat.

A LEGAL BUFFER? 

Others argue that these laws are needed, because they are in response to actual exploitation of women. “The issue is misunderstood,” says Girija Vyas, chairperson of the NCW. “Women who had been married or living with men for years were being denied maintenance on fabricated grounds of ‘characterlessness’. Just because they couldn’t prove their marriage – if they’d been married in a temple, for instance – they were being denied the compensation due to them when the man left. A relationship cannot be classified as a live-in in one day. This provision is for women who have been in the relationship for years.”
Sociologist Rashmi Kapoor says women want to assert their newfound
confidence. “Women are financially independent today. They don’t need men to support them, but these pro-women laws give women the assurance that they can’t be used and dumped. The message is clear, ‘Don’t mess with me’.”
   “The move to give live-in relationships as much importance as wedlock is a welcome decision,” says Poonam. “Partners are committed in a live-in relationship, just as they are in marriage. The only difference is that they don’t have a document that certifies that they are married. But a woman can’t be deprived just because of the lack of documentation.” So she’s all for live-in partners getting maintenance if their male partners walk out on them? “Yes, most definitely. Why should a woman sacrifice? She’s been a part of the relationship and deserves what a wife gets. Whether the man she is living with is her husband or not is irrelevant,” she adds.
   Lawyer Amir Pasrich says, “In the year 1960, in England, a woman who lived in with a man was denied the ownership of their house after her partner died. She approached the court, which held that there was implied trust and the woman had put efforts in the relationship to have ‘reasonable expectation’ that the house was hers. But this can have risky implications too. Any partner who lives in would have a reasonable expectation that the house is hers/his. Could that lead to a misuse of these laws?” However, he adds, “But if you look around, you’ll come across women who spend their entire life with a man and can’t claim a sausage – when the man’s estranged brothers, etc, walk in and claim the property. A fine balance needs to be struck.”
  
COURTS ARE PUSHING    THE BOUNDARIES 

18 JANUARY 2008: A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat declared that children born out of a live-in relationship will not be called illegitimate. “The law inclines in the interest of legitimacy and thumbs down ‘whoreson’ or ‘fruit of adultery’,” said the Bench. In further statements, the court said that even though “the assumption of marriage is rebuttable, a heavy burden lies on the person who seeks to question the legality of a relationship to ascertain that no marriage transpired. The court cannot brush off the evidence introduced to weaken the presumption in such stance.”
APRIL 8, 2008: Expanding the ambit of the Domestic Violence Act, the Delhi High Court held that the law protects not only a man’s wife but also a live-in partner.“We find no reason why equal treatment should not be accorded to a wife as well as a woman who has been living with a man as his common-law wife or even as a mistress,” the Bench said.“Like treatment to both (wives and mistress) does not, in any manner, derogate from the sanctity of marriage since an assumption can fairly be drawn that a live-in relationship is invariably initiated and perpetuated by the male,” the Bench said. It also said that in dealing with such cases,“the court should also not be impervious to social stigma which is always attached to women and not to the men.”
MAY 8, 2008: A Motor Accidental Tribunal (MACT) directed an insurance company to give 40 per cent of the compensation amount to the live-in partner of the man who died in a road accident. Sixty per cent of the compensation went to the lawfully wedded wife of the deceased.