What they don’t tell you about the Special Marriage Act
First of all, you must be wondering why the heck a creative entrepreneur is writing about this. Well, let me tell you the short answer: I paint my unfiltered life here in the form of short blogs. I write my heart out to win back some breathing space in my life.
The issues I address here are all the shit that I feel no one talks about — ever! As a grown adult in your late twenty-somethings, once an attempt to elope (in present-day India) fails, two things follow:
- You’re too stressed about what’s to follow.
- You’re worried about your family’s wellbeing as they start receiving threats from the extremists.
But in reality, your family may not be worried about you a single bit. They show they are, but NO they are not. PERIOD.
All they are worried about now is “4 log kya kahenge” (what people in the community are going to say).
It began in February 2021. After gathering our bearings and growing (much-needed) big-ass balls, my girlfriend of five years and I decide to tie the knot secretly. We arrive at this measure after we felt like we didn’t have any other alternative and this is the best we can do to stay true to ourselves. So we hired a lawyer who showed promise and gave us a pep talk. After much deliberation and thought, we proceed with and file for our marriage license under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
For those who never heard of this, the Special Marriage Act is a provision for civil marriage for people irrespective of their faith. So as two, grown and consenting adults, you find a lawyer. They file your papers. After some thirty days, you get a 90-day period within which you should get married. It’s pretty straightforward.
We do all of it. We go and meet the lawyer personally to gauge him. He cautions us about a public notice that gets displayed at the court. This isn’t much of an issue to us as we’re in a different city altogether with no family connections. But here’s the catch, he seems to have conveniently forgotten to tell us about a WEBSITE where this data is also publicly available. Not even a single word was uttered regarding this when we were being briefed about filing the process.
Thirty days later, all hell breaks loose. One of our family members is informed about our marriage attempt and starts receiving threats from extremists. You only hear of this shit in the news, right?! WRONG. This is unimaginable and scary.
My girlfriend gets a call from home in the middle of the night, and we are compelled to call off our plans and pack bags to move home.
As I write this, we are in a bad state, bound by emotional barriers that are extremely hard to break out of. And so, we are on our way to fight yet another uphill battle. With no familial support in sight. Why there’s a need to reveal a person’s private details ONLINE to everyone is beyond me!
As seen in our case, this data can be used by anyone to notify (threaten) your family members back home. (Yeah, even if you figured out a temporary stay in a different city, you need to fill in that permanent address column.) Why didn’t the lawyer tell us about this website?
This stuff keeps me up at night.
So if you are thinking to get married secretly / elope under the Special Marriage Act. Think again, folks! Even if your family is not tech-friendly and isn’t aware of such websites, some dude in your family circles will knock on your door to be the good samaritan, your friendly neighborhood Spiderman! And perform what they think is their natural duty.
After a fantastic year and a half of freedom, we’re restrained again with the invisible yet dangerous ropes of emotions. It’d have been different if we’d have gotten the marriage license. We were this close. All in vain.
If you still don’t believe what I have stated so far, go ahead and file an RTI about how marriages filed under the Special Marriage Act were held successful after giving the one-month notice.
Our fight goes on. Not everyone has the guts to go through a second round of this shit! This one is for you, if you, like us are venturing into the unknown realm of intercaste marriage. OR those of you who empathize with peeps like us and choose to stand with us rather than scaring us off!
Edited by my beloved girlfriend P.
