The law must prevail

The Supreme Court’s ruling that Christian personal law can’t override the Divorce Act upholds the principle that personal laws can’t take precedence over laws enacted by the legislature. The primacy of law, even over personal laws of those of a particular religion, is restated all over again. Usage and custom can’t prevail over the force of a specific Act of Parliament or of a state legislature. This is also a very modern view of marriage and divorce, one that should apply to everyone, It’s also about gender equality and women’s empowerment. The economic dependence of women on men in India can’t be allowed to become a bogey men use to remarry. Personal ties are complex, and no one can predict the steadfastness of marriages. What must be removed is the ease with which Indian men find shortcuts to getting a divorce.

The petitioner, a Catholic, raked up triple talaq in his defence of the canon law code, under which ecclesiastical courts gain jurisdiction in marriage and divorce. But triple talaq is also being re-examined threadbare. The Madras high court recently held that talaq certificates by qazis lack legal sanctity. Such papers may help divorced women remarry. But, fundamentally, as a society, we should back marriage as the bedrock of civilised human behaviour, and everything should be done to promote the family ethic. The sooner the triple talaq issue is resolved at the national level, the better it would be for modernity to prevail over customs that are fast losing relevance in our post-modern society.