In a landmark case nearly 128 years ago, Rukhmabai, all of 25 then, told a British India court that she would suffer imprisonment rather than choose to cohabit with her husband. Rukhmabai was married when she was just 11. She was perhaps the first Hindu woman to have challenged the notion of marriage as a sacred institution, as opposed to the modern concept of two consenting individuals deciding to stay together. Implicit in her defiance was the idea that the consent of the bride was equally necessary.
It took 68 years for our society, not without a fair share of drama, to finally accept that Rukhmabai made a valid point by her act of defiance. The Hindu Marriage Act, passed in 1955, recognised the need for consent of both the parties as the binding principle in a conjugal relationship.