Jab miya biwi razi, to kya karega qazi?(If the bride and groom agree, what is it to the judge?)AdvertisementIt is a saying as old as time, and yet one that Indian society, lawmakers and institutions repeatedly refuse to acknowledge. Under the recent amendments proposed to the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, parental consent is sought to be made compulsory for the registration of marriages. In effect, even when two legal adults consent to marry, the state demands an additional layer of approval from parents, and by extension, from the social systems that stand behind them.Like most personal choices in India, marriage has long been shaped by considerations of caste, class, religion and gender. It is rarely treated as a union of two individuals and more often described as a union of families. Social mediation of marriage, and some degree of state involvement, is not new. Even within the seemingly progressive Special Marriage Act, provisions such as the mandatory public notice of intended marriage allow objections to be raised, often rendering the process cumbersome and hostile.What is changing, however, is the growing intensity with which the state now enforces this mediation. Recent measures, including the proposed amendments in Gujarat and various anti-conversion laws, move beyond reflecting social anxieties. They grant them legal sanction and the backing of state power.AdvertisementEqually troubling is the vocabulary used to justify such interventions. Defending the proposed amendment, Gujarat’s Deputy Chief Minister invoked phrases such as “trapping of innocent girls,” “cultural invasion,” and “love jihad.” The framing is telling. Women are cast as naive and easily misled. Inter-community relationships are treated as threats. The state assumes the role of the guardian of legally recognised adults.This brings us to a deeper paradox. In India, the age of 18 marks the legal threshold of adulthood. At 18, one is deemed mature enough to vote and to be tried as an adult if accused of a criminal offence. But when it comes to personal decisions, whether intimate relationships, choosing a marital partner, or even pursuing a career path, that same individual is often considered incapable of sound judgment.Even as there are progressive discussions on decriminalising consensual relationships among adolescents, the state appears unwilling to fully respect even the rights attached to legal adulthood, particularly when such autonomy unsettles caste hierarchies or patriarchal control.This paternalism is not confined to legislatures. It echoes across campuses, particularly in women’s hostels, where curfews and surveillance are justified in the language of protection. Women are not trusted to assess risk. They are rarely educated towards making informed choices or offered safety nets that allow room for error. Control becomes synonymous with care, often making secrecy the only available way of practising agency and, paradoxically, making them more vulnerable to exploitative relationships.The burdens of conditional adulthood, however, are not borne by women alone. Men, too, are constrained, though differently. Cast as torchbearers of family lineage, they are seldom trusted with genuine autonomy. From career paths to marriage choices to living arrangements, many grow up navigating expectations scripted long before they can consent to them.The Supreme Court of India has previously delivered progressive judgments, including Justice K S Puttaswamy vs Union of India and Shafin Jahan vs K M Asokan, recognising the right to choose a marital partner as part of personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. However, during a recent hearing, Justice B V Nagarathna remarked that she failed to understand how a man and a woman could be in a physical relationship before marriage.The remark is an unfortunate reminder of the direction in which public discourse appears to be moving, and of the precedents such discomfort can quietly legitimise. The court is not required to understand intimate choices. It is required to ensure that such choices remain free from coercion and within the law.you may likeWhat may appear to be narrow interventions into marriage carry deeper democratic consequences. A republic that grants state sanction to social anxieties weakens the culture of liberty itself. When autonomy is made conditional in private life, citizens internalise a habit of obedience. Intellectual freedom rarely survives such training. The result is a citizenry less inclined to question authority or speak truth to power.The Indian family tradition, marked by caste, religious and patriarchal sensibilities where love is equated with control, must be questioned if we are to build a healthier society. Democracy, like liberty, must begin at home. The role of the state is to protect individual freedoms, not to appease social anxieties. Intervention is necessary against unequal structures that jeopardise choice, not when individuals exercise what is rightfully theirs to love and to choose.Prakash is a research scholar at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. Sharma is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi