Article Published In Vol.8 (May-June 2020)

Crimes against women as a correlate of incidents of Divorce in India

Author : Akhilesh Pathak

From its erstwhile doctrine of “till death do us part” to its present maxim, “till discord do us part”, the realm of marital relationship has undergone a colossal change. Rising divorce rates has been a global phenomenon in recent decades with the more advanced countries exhibiting a greater proneness toward it. While a search for its various reasons has often taken us to factors such as enhanced status of women, greater employment among women, more access to economic resources by women and the likes, the contribution of marital violence seems somewhat neglected. This paper is an attempt at establishing a correlation between crimes against women and number of divorced women in India. Official data from Census of India – 2011 has been referred to in addition to other governmental sources such as data published by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. A high correlation between the two variables suggests that marital violence could be considered to be a major factor behind women seeking divorce. However, the hypothesis needs to be confirmed with the help of further research.

Keywords: Marriage, divorce, crimes against women, separation, marital violence