When Saying No to Marriage Feels Harder Than Committing a Crime

In many households, refusing a marriage can mean emotional estrangement, financial consequences or social ostracism.

Both Sonam Raghuvanshi and Siya Goyal were in relationships with other men while their families had arranged marriages for them.

(Image: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

After spending days watching marriages unravel in courtrooms, you would think a show celebrating arranged marriages would be the last thing a lawyer would enjoy. But despite being a divorce lawyer practising in India's tier-one cities, I am a fan of the celebrity socialite Sima Taparia and her reality show, Indian Matchmaking. The irony of it isn't lost on me but I am invested in it not because it romanticises arranged marriages, but because it offers an unfiltered glimpse into how Indian families negotiate marriage, consent, compromise and control. 

Through the show, 'Sima Aunty' has (in)famously made comments like "You have to compromise”, “You'll never get 100 percent; if you get 60-70 percent, proceed,” “She doesn’t have to marry a poet; she can always read a book," in her bid to get her clients the best match.

This isn't merely relationship advice; it reflects an entire social philosophy, something that fuels India's booming wedding industry and helps explain why the country continues to report one of the world's lowest divorce rates, officially estimated at around 1 to 1.3 percent.

Marriage is celebrated not simply as a union between two individuals, but as an institution sustained by compromise, family involvement and the expectation that relationships are preserved rather than abandoned. And it is this philosophy that came back to me while reading about the Siya Goyal and Sonam Raghuvanshi cases.

Context is Not a Defence

Siya Goyal, a 26-year-old from Pune, is allegedly the mastermind along with her paramour Chetan Chaudhary, in the murder of her fiancé, Ketan Aggarwal. 

The two families had known each other for over 35 years. The wedding venue was to be a fort in Rajasthan, booked at an estimated cost of Rs 17 crores, with families planning to fly down in private jets to the venue. This alliance had the all the makings of the proverbial "big fat Indian wedding". By the numbers and the checklist, this was the kind of alliance Indian families often describe as "ideal”, due to the compatible backgrounds, longstanding trust and shared social standing.

In the wake of Ketan’s death, his grieving grandfather said, “How much more could we have looked for in this match? The families had a long-standing relationship, the kids grew up together, the social strata, the class...everything matched.”

Every box that matters in the Indian marriage market had been ticked. Except perhaps the only one that the law insists upon: the free and unequivocal consent of the two adults getting married. 

The case is almost a dead ringer of the Sonam Raghuvanshi case. Sonam, who had married Raja Raghuvanshi, is accused to have conspired with her paramour, Raj Kushwaha, to murder her husband during what was supposed to be their honeymoon in Meghalaya. Like the Aggarwal-Goyal alliance, the marriage matched the gold standards of a conventionally "successful" match.

Here also, the boyfriend, Raj Kushwaha was no stranger to the accused, and he had reportedly been working in Sonam's father's business. Yet, according to her family, they had no knowledge of the alleged relationship.

In Siya Goyal's case too, her father, speaking from a hospital bed after suffering a heart attack in wake of the incident, has publicly stated that he had no knowledge of Chetan Chaudhary or his daughter's relationship with him, and that the marriage had been fixed with her consent.

In many Indian households, irrespective of strata and capital, refusing a marriage can mean emotional estrangement, financial consequences or social ostracism. A meticulously curated wedding with social acceptance is still the go-to choice for families who still live with the principle of "we know what’s best for you” when it comes to making life decisions for adults.

Both Sonam Raghuvanshi and Siya Goyal were in relationships with other men while their families had arranged marriages for them. The women chose silence over consent and went about the functions of a wedding and an engagement to gain societal acceptance.

If the allegations against Siya Goyal and Sonam Raghuvanshi are ultimately proved, which will take considerable time and court manoeuvres, they should be pinned with the same criminal responsibility that any man would face.

Equality cannot stop at rights; it must extend to accountability. A woman accused of orchestrating a murder should not receive a leeway simply because she is a woman. Millions of Indians navigate parental expectations without resorting to violence. The institution may create pressure; it cannot justify taking away someone’s life due to fear of repercussions. 

But if they indeed did what they are accused of, it goes to show that for many women, crime is easier than asserting themselves and their choices with their family, especially when it comes to matters of marriage.

The Myth of Parental Consent

We are still living in a society where a woman choosing to remain single by her own volition is considered a pariah, including by her family. Parental consent is regularly conflated or read in tandem with societal approval. Very few women are raised to question or defy both in one go for their personal autonomy.

Just a few days ago, the Delhi High Court reiterated that the statutory 30-day notice period under the Special Marriage Act cannot be waived merely because it inconveniences a couple.

Whether one agrees with the decision or not, it reflects a larger truth about Indian marriage laws and social practice: marriage is still imagined as an institution that invites scrutiny not only from the couple but also from society at large.

We often invoke the proverb, "Miyan biwi raazi toh kya karega Qazi?" (If the husband and wife agree, what can the Qazi (Islamic judge/marriage officiant) do?) as though the consent of two adults is all that matters. That has rarely been enough. Between parents, relatives, communities, and social expectations, marriage in India is seldom treated as a purely personal decision and remain, for the most part, a family project.

As a lawyer, I have spent years watching marriages unravel in courtrooms. Rarely do they fail because the families were mismatched. They fail mainly because the two individuals inside the marriage entered it with different expectations, unequal willingness or, in some cases, without ever having exercised their autonomy in a meaningful way. We have become exceptionally good at matching families, backgrounds and social capital. We are still learning how to respect the agency of the two people whose consent is the only one that should matter. 

My concern with these cases, however, starts with the public perception first. Society reacts to these instances and presumes generalisations about women, using these cases to nullify critiques of patriarchy and deligitimise the vast gamut of gender-based violence faced by women every day.

Reels about how men should be wary of women who refuse to unquestioningly slide into the traditional "devoted wife" mould have started pouring in on social media already. Such narratives not only amplify misogyny but also put undue pressure on the criminal justice system to keep pace with society’s selective demand for “justice”.

Arguments like "If Sonam Raghuvanshi had already been harshly punished, a Siya Goyal would not have happened" are fraught as they seem to indicate that the precedent of stricter punishments would deter people from committing crimes. Several studies and surveys as well as real time cases of recurrent violence against women despite strict laws proves the fallacy of these beliefs.

If tomorrow, the genders were reversed and a man allegedly conspiring to kill a fiancée because he wanted another relationship (as has happened in many cases on far a more regular basis than the opposite), we would rightly condemn him without hesitation. We should do the same here.

But we should also mull over how far we have come as a society when it comes to consent and autonomy of adults in their personal matters. Why do we still, knowingly or unknowingly, approve and celebrate familial approval over individual consent?

The answer to that question will not be justification for committing another crime. It will, however, tell us something about why saying "no" to a marriage remains one of the hardest choices many Indian adults believe they can make.

(Tahini Bhushan is partner at Tatvika Legal, A full-service law firm based in Delhi NCR. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint does not endorse or is reponsible for them.)