While these three developments underscore the importance of freedom in marital relationships, the Maharashtra proposal seeks to balance freedom with justice by granting basic maintenance rights to an unmarried long-term cohabitee. It is true that unmarried cohabiting couples have not consented to all the rights and obligations that follow marriage. Nonetheless, the proposal recognises the fact that unmarried cohabitees also contribute to each other’s lives by making sacrifices which need to be accounted for.

These developments seek to enhance freedom in the context of marital relationships, and temper it with justice where necessary. But they are being drowned out by regressive measures, typified by a recent report of the National Commission for Minorities on the dwindling birth-rate of Parsis. It called upon “Parsi community leaders [to] get together to resolve ... problems which cause the birth rate to slow down, namely, late and non-marriages ... out-marriages and separation-divorces.” Surely, a freedom-enhancing way of addressing dwindling numbers is to recognise the children from “out-marriages” as Parsis. But, citing what sounds suspiciously close to a purity-of-blood argument, the report says this “may increase the religion but not the community” (sic). Dr. Ambedkar had recognised long ago that the only way to democratise Indian society was by democratising marital relationships. It is time we took that vision seriously.

The writer is a legal scholar at Oxford University