The Supreme Court ruled on appeal recently that legal and punitive proceedings against men cohabiting with but not legally married to a woman were valid. The ruling is welcome given that many ‘irregular marriages’ subsist whether monogamous or polygamous, the latter despite the existence of laws barring them, and it would be a travesty of natural justice to deny women in such unions the protective umbrella of the law. It could well be maintained, in fact, that women in ‘illegal’ marriages are often more in need of protection from the state because they do not have even that modicum of relief other women might just about have in the shape of social sanctions and familial support. This ruling is of a piece with recent judicial verdicts that have given women in unions that do not have a legal imprimatur, a variety of safeguards including the right to maintenance when abandoned.
That said, there is probably a case for more proactive state action to prevent infringement of laws against polygamy. There can be little doubt that an overwhelming majority of polygamous marriages leave all the wives involved in such arrangements in seriously invidious situations.
The first wives most often face abandonment, often with the added responsibility of looking after children from the legal marriage. Since, unfortunately, the social stigma against polygamous practices is near non-existent, especially in rural areas, sanctions against abandonment barely exist. Once married, women cease to enjoy the support of their own families and are unenviably cast adrift to fend for themselves. And since in most cases their access to legal processes is at best tenuous they are deprived of the support of the state as well. The second wife or subsequent wives were worse off since technically they did not have the protection of the law, till recently. Since most women do not have ready access to legal redress, it is incumbent on the state to crack down on polygamous practices to begin with. It is a matter of deep disquietude that celebrity polygamists seem to get away with polygamous misadventures with impunity because the enforcement agencies do not act suo motu. If the law has to be changed to facilitate such action without the need for a complaint from the injured parties, that should be seriously contemplated.
It might not matter to the relatively empowered women but it does to the large majority of women in this country.