SHANAVAS S | Issue Dated: March 22, 2012, New Delhi
In God’s Own Country, it seems that a sharply rising number of marriages are being made anywhere but in heaven. Family courts in Kerala have witnessed a 350 percent increase in divorces over the last decade, a fact acknowledged by the Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on the floor of the Assembly. The Chief Minister was replying to a question in the state Assembly last week and, in the process, pointing to the increasing fragility of the institution of marriage among Kerala’s younger, 'me-first', upwardly mobile generation.
Mr Chandy told the House that the total number of divorce cases filed in various family courts in the state between January 2011 and January 2012 was as high as 44,236. He said, “Divorce cases in Kerala have increased as never before.”
A reply given in the Lok Sabha last year to a question on the status of widows and divorced/deserted women across the country indicates the intensity of the problem in Kerala. The total number of divorced or separated women in the country was 23.43 lakh, with 1.96 lakh of them, or 8.36 percent, being in Kerala. To put that figure in perspective, the state accounts for only 3 percent of the nation's population.
If not quite an epidemic yet, marital break-ups among younger couples in Kerala have certainly assumed exceptional proportions. The jump in the number of divorces last year was unprecedented.
Consider the statistics of the last five years. In 2005-06, 8456 divorce cases were filed. The number has been going up steadily since: it was 9775 in 2006-07; 9937 in 2007-08; 11194 in 2008-09; 11600 in 2009-10; and 24815 in 2010-2011.
Obviously, it is difficult to put a finger on the principal cause of the malaise. But is it a malaise at all? Kerala has changed over the past decade and its youth is no longer willing to play by the established social paradigms that their parents adhered to. Individualism holds sway all around, people are in a hurry to get on with life, and emotional and social adjustments with an incompatible life partner is no longer an option for many.
Take the case of Nikhil and Jyothi (names changed). The well-educated youngsters were employed in a thriving IT firm. That is where they first met and fell in love. They got married with the blessings of their families after a two-year courtship. For three yearslife was smooth, as were their careers. They were generally regarded as a happy couple. And then their relationship began to come unstuck.
Nobody could have guessed that they weren’t really made for each other. Owing to their irreconcilable differences, Nikhil and Jyothi eventually opted to file a joint divorce petition in a family court. Unable to figure out what went wrong with the couple, their families and friends are still in a state of shock.
Nikhil and Jyothi are only one example among thousands in Kerala. According to the reply given by Mr Chandy in the Assembly last week, Thrissur, Ernakulam and Pathanamthitta districts were at the top of the table.But recent data provided by the state government reveals that the Kerala capital, Thiruvananthapuram, is the capital of divorce cases too. Of the 44,236 cases filed in 16 family courts in the state, the capital leads with 6000 cases in its two family courts, in Thiruvananthapuram and Nedumangad.
The least number of cases, 341, were filed in Wayanad. Kollam is in the second position on the table with 4243 cases followed by Thrissur (4063), Kozhikode (4008), Malappuram (3934), Ernakulam (3712), Kottayam (2880), Pathanamthitta (2044), Alappuzha (2361), Idukki (1161) and Kasargod (987).
The divorce rate in the state has been showing a disturbing increase ever since the process was made much easier through an amendment of the 1976 Divorce Act. Following the amendment, mutual consent of a couple was good enough for a family court to grant divorce.Moreover, the Kerala High Court decision to bring down the minimum period for an estranged couple to live apart from each other from two years to only one has allowed divorce seekers to move the court earlier for separation.
Counsellors believe that the rising trend of divorces could be caused by an array of obvious factors, ranging from dowry harassment, domestic violence and alcoholism to extra-marital affairs, mental stress, emotional incompatibility, religious differences and adjustment problems with in-laws. But no matter what it is that leads to a couple divorcing each other, every problem in the book is linked to the sweeping social changes that Kerala has seen in recent years.
Rapid urbanisation, coupled with a tendency among some to blindly imitate Western social mores, is being touted as a reason for the rising divorce rate. The growing economic independence of women has given them the power to break free from marriages that aren’t working and branch out on their own to pursue their careers and other goals. Indeed, many women are no longer willing to subjugate their personal ambitions to forced family commitments.
In cities like Thiruvananthapuram, divorce cases are particularly high among those working in the IT sector. More than 30 percent of all divorces that happen in the city every year are among couples employed in IT firms. In this sector, divorces are sought by couples mostly within the first three years of marriage.
Professional stress caused by the constant pressure from seniors and peers to meet professional targets is a constant bane in the life of a techie. What makes matters worse is that most of these young men and women live away from their homes and do not have the support of family elders to sort out marital disputes. Many also fall prey to avoidable
addictions like drugs, drinks and late-night parties, which only aggravate the sense of alienation.
“Urbanisation and blind imitation of a Western lifestyle are said to be the main reasons for the high divorce rate in Kerala. But in cities, break-ups are mainly in the IT sector. Here, economic independence and adjustment problems are seen as the main reasons for divorce,” says Dr Razeena Padmam, psychiatrist and director, School of Behavioural Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala.
She adds: “The new age woman is more aware of her sexuality and rights. So she does not take things lying down when faced with marital problems. She opts for divorce rather than continue in an unhappy marriage.”
Indeed, economic independence of women has ensured that they now view divorce as an alternative to an unhappy marriage. On the other side, the society’s attitude to divorce has also changed and a woman who has walked out of a marriage is no longer stigmatised the way that she once was.
So marriages, even when they appear to have been made in heaven, have short honeymoon periods and are frequently unmade in the state's family courts.
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