Coimbatore: Cupid is clearly losing to conventional arranged marriages. Love marriages appear to be more brittle than arranged marriages going by the divorce cases piling up in the family court in Coimbatore.
Young pairs, who married just a few months or years ago, with love in their eyes and hearts, are now increasingly stomping into court halls to end their wedlock. As many as 1,250 couples, mostly young professionals who married out of love, have trooped into the family court in Coimbatore, for divorce this year. Every year at least 1,000 divorce petitions are filed in the Coimbatore family court.
But the startling turn in the tale of marital discord is that a majority of them are young professionals who have been married for just a few months or years. In all, about 4,550 couples are desperately awaiting grant of divorce by the family court.
“A considerable 60 per cent of the couples going for divorces are those who tied the knot after being in love,” said a court official.
Take the case of a 27- year-old North Indian youth who married a girl of same age from Kerala. Their love bloomed on their college campus, but withered after marriage and a baby when he asked her not to take up a job.
Their divorce petition is among the huge pile of 4,550 cases pending before the family court in Coimbatore. Now, the couple’s six-year-old child is visiting the court hall along with the mother.
“Soon after marriage, she preferred to go for a job in Tirupur. Her husband did not want her to go for a job and instead asked her to stay with him in Coimbatore and look after their family. When she refused, it led to the couple filing divorce,” said the family court lawyer, M. Vennila.
Recently, a boy and girl fell in love and married while studying together in a college filed a divorce petition just within three months of marriage.
“They got married out of infatuation, but opted for divorce, when they could not face the harsh reality of life,” says the lawyer. Sharing and understanding are missing, say counsellors. Financial crisis, alcoholism, illicit affair, stubbornness and ego among the couples play key roles in marital discords.
