Family law reform: Marriage in India sits at the junction of contract, kinship and welfare. It decides inheritance, care, child-rearing, financial dependence and social standing. The institution is under strain. Family disputes now produce parallel proceedings over cruelty, maintenance, custody, residence and property. Delay hardens positions. The law then becomes a site of punishment before it becomes a route to settlement.
The public argument has acquired a damaging shape. Women’s groups point to domestic violence, dowry harassment, abandonment and unpaid care. Men’s groups point to false or exaggerated cases, denial of custody or visitation, and the psychological cost of long litigation. A serious system does not need a gender camp. It needs to protect victims, test evidence, punish fraud and reduce the time taken to grant relief.
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Family law reform must retain women’s protections
Indian women still enter many marriages with less property, lower earnings and greater dependence. NFHS-5 recorded that 29.3% of ever-married women aged 18-49 had experienced spousal violence; the figure was 31.6% in rural India and 24.2% in urban India. NCRB’s Crime in India 2023 data recorded 4.48 lakh crimes against women, with cruelty by husband or relatives the largest category at 29.8%, or 1.33 lakh cases.
These figures explain why domestic violence law, maintenance, dowry prohibition and equal inheritance rights remain necessary. Weakening these protections would make exit harder for women with little independent income, shared property or family support. The point of reform is not to make the law less available to women who need it. It is to make the law more accurate in each case.
Due process in marital disputes
The state has been slower to accept that men too face procedural injury in marital conflict. Some cases run for years. Custody and visitation orders are difficult to enforce. Interim maintenance can become a negotiation tactic. The financial and emotional cost of litigation is borne by both sides, though not always equally.
The Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Arnesh Kumar v State of Bihar addressed this danger without diluting Section 498A. It told police not to arrest automatically in Section 498A and Dowry Prohibition Act cases, and required reasons under the CrPC before detention. The Court added that these directions would apply to offences punishable with imprisonment up to seven years.
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The ruling’s centre was due process. A criminal allegation must be investigated seriously; an arrest must still be justified. A family justice system mature enough to protect an abused woman should also be mature enough to detect false testimony, inflated claims and strategic delay. The two duties do not cancel each other.
Gender-neutral family justice
Public discussion often reduces family law to men’s rights versus women’s rights. That frame misses the object of family justice. A complainant should not be presumed truthful because of gender. An accused should not be presumed victim because of gender. Each case has to be judged on evidence.
Support services need the same correction. A woman escaping violence needs shelter, money and legal help. A man pushed into serious distress by prolonged litigation needs counselling. A child trapped in a parental dispute needs psychological support regardless of which parent has custody. Vulnerability is not uniform. The institutions dealing with it cannot be built on slogans.
Gender-neutral procedure does not mean identical substantive law. It means that investigation, mediation, interim maintenance, custody and evidence should not begin with an assumption of guilt or innocence. Mediation should be used where there is no violence or coercive control. Digital evidence should be taken more seriously. Interim maintenance should be decided quickly on disclosed income, assets and liabilities. False testimony and fabricated evidence should carry costs, whoever produces it.
Shared parenting and child welfare
Children often become bargaining instruments in marital litigation. Custody fights can drift into a contest over parental entitlement rather than child welfare. Indian family courts should move towards shared parenting where circumstances permit and there is no history of abuse, neglect or intimidation. Divorce may end a marriage. It should not by itself erase parenthood.
A child-centred custody framework would ask whether the child’s school routine, emotional security, access to both parents and visitation schedule can be protected. In cases involving violence, shared parenting should give way to protection. In ordinary conflict, the law should discourage the use of children as leverage.
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Family courts need institutional reform
Marriage is changing because Indian society is changing. More women are educated, employed and willing to assert legal rights. More men seek a larger role in child-rearing and want family courts to treat them as parents, not merely payers. These shifts are not proof that the family is collapsing. They show that older legal habits are failing new social facts.
The changes required are institutional, not ideological. India needs faster family courts, trained mediators, clearer interim maintenance rules, better financial disclosure, enforceable visitation orders, counselling for children, and judges trained in domestic violence, coercive control and litigation abuse. Technology should help with filings, financial records, summons and scheduling. It cannot substitute judicial judgment.
Fairness in family law does not require a choice between men and women. It requires a system that protects the vulnerable, tests allegations, punishes abuse of process and gives children a stable relationship with both parents where it is safe. Marriage remains an important Indian institution. It will retain legitimacy only if the law treats dignity, accountability and care as obligations on both sides.
Anusreeta Dutta is a columnist, political ecology researcher with experience as an ESG analyst. Dr Zahid Sultan is an independent researcher with a PhD in Political Science.