New Delhi: The Law Commission has suggested certain changes in marriage and divorce laws that should be uniformly accepted in the personal laws of all religions, while holding that the uniform civil code "is neither necessary nor desirable at this stage" in the country.
The commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice B S Chauhan whose tenure ended on Friday, has come out with a 185-page consultation paper on "Family Law Reforms' which said a unified nation does not necessarily need to have "uniformity".
Marriage at 18
It favoured fixing the marriageable age for men and women at 18 years so that they marry as equals, and said that the insistence on recognising different ages of marriage between consenting adults must be "abolished".
Currently, the minimum age for men is 21 years and 18 years for women to get married.
"If a universal age for majority is recognised, and that grants all citizens the right to choose their governments, surely, they must then be also considered capable of choosing their spouses.
"For equality in the true sense, the insistence on recognising different age of marriage between consenting adults must be abolished.
"The age of majority must be recognised uniformly as the legal age for marriage for men and women alike, as is determined by the Indian Majority Act, 1875, i.e. eighteen years of age.
Equality of spouses
"The difference in age for husband and wife has no basis in law as spouses entering into a marriage are by all means equals and their partnership must also be of that between equals," stated the report.
The commission suggested that Parliament should enact a law to address the issue of legitimisation of children born of live-in relationships that fail to reach the threshold of a deemed marriage.
"Further, such children should be entitled to inherit the self acquired property of their parents," it said.
It is urged that the legislature should first consider guaranteeing "equality within communities" between men and women, rather than "equality between communities", the report, released on August 31 stated.
"This way some of the differences within personal laws which are meaningful can be preserved and inequality can be weeded out to the greatest extent possible without absolute uniformity," it added.
The commission said "efforts have to be made to reconcile our diversity with universal and indisputable arguments on human rights".
