For centuries, India has been shelled in relative conservatism. The country has an extremely rich heritage and looks to guard it through conventional means. It believes that the institution of marriage is too sacred and must be abided by in all circumstances. Unless, absolutely unavoidable, Indian culture believes divorce to be profane. Perhaps, this is why, rate of divorce in India is far lesser than the western country. While a simple irrational act can lead to a split between couples in the west, Indians think a trillion times before calling it quits.
While the rate of divorce has been far lesser in India than in America, Europe or other western countries, the present trends show and alarming rise in divorce lawsuits. This has heralded due to many reasons. India still believes infidelity to be taboo. Whereas the western countries still accept the idea and pass it as a human error, the Indians take it very strongly and generally reason it out as a sure shot case for divorce.
Earlier, Indians did not have the guts to go ahead with adultery. It caused unbelievable social stigma. Today, there’re many spouses who go for it blatantly. Few of them get caught. This adds to the simmering pool of divorces.
Sexual dysfunction is pleasantly tackled in west. In India, it results in slow growing rift. If it’s a female, she hardly likes talking about it. It’s all still okay but when it leads to infertility, a male begins to look for an heir, a successor. He might seek it through another marriage as in-vitro fertilization and surrogate motherhood are still fresh concepts in the country. Such a situation is leading to divorces. It was still the same in the past but then people were not modern enough to leave the spouse on the grounds of infertility.
Now, the social fabric of society has also changed. The social flux is far more dynamic today. Women look to meet different people outside their immediate social sphere. Now, they might be attracted to the man if there is simmering discontent with the present marriage and further issues of incompatibility. In such cases, condition may get further deteriorated and lead to divorces.
Today, women have come at par with men. They are feeling the burden of keeping their present status of equality intact. They have their rights and they have to live with them. In the past, a woman had to bear each thing with a smile and she could not do much about it. Today, they are a changed a lot. They won’t bear injustice further and this leads to a lot of divorces.
While even the parents asked them to go back to their in-laws in the past, today, they are a more in line with the truth of the divorce and do not pressurize their daughters much.
Despite rising divorce petitions and lawsuits or legal separation, west is still the clear leader in terms of divorces.