Essay

Change

Hinduism

17 October 2023

7 min read

Re-defining marriage: how India slowly changed its mind

As India sought independence a long struggle to re-define marriage was culminating. Rahil Patel tells the story of the Hindu Marriage Act and its Christian influences.

Rahil Patel

Rahil is a former Hindu monk, and author of Found By Love. He is a Tutor and Speaker at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

A close-up of a bride groom holding the brides hand. Her hand is henna tattooed and bears gold rings and bracelets.

Bride and Groom hold hands during a Hindu wedding.

Photo by Jayesh Jalodara on Unsplash.

During the last few months of the United Kingdom’s 200 year rule in India, the British Government in London wanted to establish its last legacy on a majority Hindu land. Britain had shaped the Indian Subcontinent not only through the establishment of democratic institutions, free press, nationwide infrastructure, a robust stock market and so on but with radical social reforms that brought well-needed equality, dignity and fairness at every level across The Raj’s 300 million citizens. This seminal legacy was the sanctity of the Christian marriage. One husband, one wife. However, it was not the colonial administrators who delivered the legacy, but Indian campaigners, reformers and lawyers. This is their story.

The idea of one husband, one wife was cautiously presented to the lawyer turned activist Mohandas Gandhi in 1946 which the Mahatma turned down vehemently and bluntly told the British not to interfere in this area. The British were always careful when suggesting social and cultural change and so they recoiled without any further pressure. But this attitude surprised many as Gandhi was significantly influenced by the Christian faith to the point where he not only believed that the Sermon on the Mount was a profound spiritual document but the greatest political document of all time.

Heroes and husbands

It was seen as a sign of power and status to have more than one wife in Indian society and likewise for a woman to have many husbands was a sign of strength and not submission. This wasn’t at the princely or aristocratic level alone but the merchant caste and village leaders as well. Why? It was a practice that followed in the footsteps of two powerful incarnations of God in the Hindu world. Ram and Krishna.

There are two great epics in Hindu culture which are etched into the minds of most of the one billion Hindus across the globe.

The first being the Ramayana scripture which was written across a span of 400 years between 200 BC and 200 AD. In this popular story (inspired by the Iliad) the incarnation of the Supreme Brahman is Lord Rama. He incarnates as a righteous king and is married to Sita and defeats the evil king Ravana (which is the central theme of celebration for Hindus during Diwali).There are approximately 300 versions of the Ramayana and some state that this much admired king had 8,000 wives including Sita.

The other great epic is the Mahabharata scripture which was written over a period of 800 years between 400 BC and 400 AD (which inspired the Latin poem Aeneid by Virgil). The Mahabharata contains two very important aspects of Hindu culture. The first is the Bhagvad Gita scripture within its battle riddled story (which the father of the atomic bomb J.R Oppenheimer quotes after seeing the impact of the bomb, “I am become death destroyer of the worlds...”) and the other is the most prominent and pivotal incarnation of the Supreme Brahman in the Hindu world whose name is Krishna. Krishna had 16,108 wives. Draupadi is a strong and feisty woman in the same story who has five husbands.

The influence starts

So where does the battle for the Christian marriage in the Indian story begin? With 19th century social reformers.

Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar was born into an Orthodox Hindu family in Bengal (Eastern India). He was raised as a devout orthodox Hindu but was later in life influenced by the eminent organisation, Brahmo Samaj. Much of the way in which Hindus practice their faith today both individually and as a community is largely due to the influence of the Brahmo Samaj in the 18th and 19th century. It was established by another famous Bengali, Raja Ram Mohun Roy who is known today as ‘The Father of the Indian Renaissance.' Roy believed firmly in his heart that in order to transform Indian society one needs to transform Hinduism, and to transform Hinduism for the better one needs Christian doctrine and practices at the heart of the Hindu framework. He campaigned against Sati (the burning of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband) and fought for women’s rights in general. The Christian idea that all were made in the image of God (and equal) was engraved deeply into his worldview.

Ishwar Chandra saw from Roy’s perspective the need and power in emancipating women in Indian society. He began to pushback and campaign against deeply entrenched Hindu customs which wasn’t easy. After great efforts his vigorous campaign to allow widows to remarry was signed into law (The Hindu Widow’s Remarriage Act, 1856).

But pushing into law the Christian sanctity of monogamy was far beyond his reach.

It was the ardent social reformer and critic of the Christian faith Keshub Chandra Sen who would later get the ball rolling in a significant way. Born in Bengal to a devout Hindu family as well.

Keshub publicly criticised the Christian faith in his early years until he came across a book written by the French diplomat and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville. Alexis had spent some time in America studying American democracy and his work, Democracy in America was published in 1835. Towards the end of the second volume Tocqueville states that the growth and strength of America’s democracy stems largely from the sanctity of the Christian marriage.

Reading this powerful argument transformed the understanding of Christianity for Keshub Chandra Sen. It was also a popular question amongst Indian social and political reformers of the time as to why and how a tiny island and a few thousand British civil servants managed such a vast subcontinent. “What is their spiritual gift?” was the running question and Keshub realised it was the nature of a family based on Christian beliefs.

He followed in the footsteps of Roy and as one of the most influential thinkers of his time campaigned to introduce Christian doctrine and ideas into Hinduism. After all his painful efforts he managed to pass the Special Marriage Act in 1869 for those who were members of the reformed Hindu organisation Brahmo Samaj but failed to introduce it into law across the wider Hindu population due to immense push back from the Orthodox high caste Hindu Brahmins.

But this idea of a Christian marriage and the strength it can bring to a society stayed very much alive in the Indian intelligentsia for years.

A constitutional approach falters

It was the brilliant economist, social reformer and political leader, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar who finally took one husband, one wife across the finishing line.

Ambedkar studied at the London School of Economics (where a bust of him can still be seen in the Atrium of the Old Building). With his incredibly well-furnished mind he knew the pitfalls of Hinduism when it came to democracy. He believed they were not compatible due to the unfair and rigid caste system and so, later on, when as a lawyer, Ambedkar was assigned the crafting of the Indian constitution he ensured it was embedded with Christian principles of equality.

It was during this time in the 1940s that Bhimrao came across the masterful work of Joseph Unwin Sex and Culture which reveals the importance of sexual restraint and its profound impact on society. Unwin’s work made an impression on Ambedkar and revealed to him the weakening hole within the Indian marriage.

Ambedkar was in tune with the likes of Keshub Chandra Sen whilst equally unraveling the flaws of Gandhian politics and economics using his razor sharp intellect . Although he took Buddhism as his faith he introduced the Christian idea of marriage to India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1948 whilst drafting the final articles of the Indian constitution. He told Nehru that it was vital to put into law the idea of one husband and one wife. Again, the Constituent Assembly rejected the idea without a second thought. So, Nehru told Ambedkar to leave the idea for a while and get the constitution passed as it was. Then, after the new Indian government was formed they could bring the idea back to the cabinet. This battle took a very long time…

Tenacity triumphs

In 1952 the ruling party of the newly formed India, along with India’s first President Dr. Rajendra Prasad, tore the proposal apart once again. Nehru threatened to resign if the party did not pass the Christian idea of marriage but the cabinet called his bluff. Nehru knew that even if his party passed the law the President would not sign on it and so he gave up all hope. Ambedkar by now was furious and fed up with his friends and so he applied his brilliant mind and tenacity to writing articles in the Indian press attacking the ruling party and his friend the Prime Minister - with incredible style, substance and affect.

Ambedkar had a significant amount of social and political clout across the aisle, and with the general public, so eventually after years of pushing, pressing and penning his arguments the Hindu Marriage Act was passed in 1955. At last, the biblical idea of one husband and one wife came into law after a battle that took over 100 years.

Growing up in England and that in an Orthodox Hindu family I often heard my parents complain about the divorce rates in western societies. Divorce is not condoned in any Hindu scripture as per my reading over 20 years as a Hindu monk and yet the sanctity of marriage in Hindu communities in the west is still fairly strong in comparison to most other communities. It’s helpful to remember the roots of that strength.

Article

Change

Community

Hospitality

7 October 2025

6 min read

In an age of disconnection, I want to belong

Old rituals offer reasons to stay linked together even when the world is trying to pull us apart

Elizabeth Wainwright

Elizabeth Wainwright is a writer, coach and walking guide. She's a former district councillor and has a background in international development.

Wassailers emerge from a shed beside a wood

Wassailing at Bourne Woods, Lincolnshire.

Bob Harvey, CCL, Geograph.

Once, I went to a ‘wassail’ on the edge of the city I lived in. A Wassail, from the Old English phrase meaning "be in good health", is a ceremony that involves toasting apple trees and scaring away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest, and it dates back to Anglo Saxon times. A man dressed in green and brown layers and leaves led the ceremony, passing around cups and cider for us to offer to the trees. We listened to stories, shared food. The event was ticketed. I was curious. But I felt out of place; a fraud stepping into this old ritual with no prior connection to these particular apple trees or this bit of land they were on, or to the people who surrounded them – trying to convince myself and others that I belonged. To what? To who? At the end, we all went back to our separate homes across the city, no more responsibility for those trees, nothing to link us to each other anymore.

I’ve been advertised many events like this. Places to be celebrated through feasting, music and dance, entering into “ancient traditions connecting us to nature” – beating the bounds, toasting the land, enjoying seasonal feasts, listening to old stories. Photos advertising these events are like something styled for Country Living magazine, placing heritage rituals in high-end consumer settings; signalling intentionally or not that they are curated lifestyle experiences available to those who can afford them. They are part of the growing ‘return to the land’ movement that I often come across online, mediated through brands and influencers, curated retreats, Instagrammable countryside.

I look outside the window towards our rural Devon village. It is grey and drizzly, and it will probably be grey and drizzly at harvest time. There will be no Instagrammable moments, but there will be deep roots that have grown slowly and are tended all year round.

Perhaps these events signify an ache for a particular kind of rootedness. I have this ache. I am envious of friends who farm in landscapes their ancestors have inhabited for hundreds of years, of people who feel a clear sense of home and belonging. In the past, these feelings were often linked to community and to the faith and work traditions that bind community together: harvest home, Lammas, Rogation, saints’ days, midsummer. They weren’t boutique experiences open to anyone who could pay for them; they were communal and local, woven into survival, farming, faith, community. I am trying to carve out these feelings too.

I have been wondering what we lose when old celebrations and rituals are curated, commodified, or disconnected from the deeper soil of faith and tradition that once sustained them. How do we celebrate the longing for rootedness without flattening it into a lifestyle accessory, stripping it of faith, memory, obligation, and mystery? How might old rituals help us to feel deeply hopeful and rooted in an environmentally and socially fragmented age?

I think it can help to place these rituals in the context of place; of community; of faith. These contexts offer reasons to stay linked together even when the world is trying to pull us apart, even when I’d rather walk away. Without some kind of infrastructure of belonging, I think old rituals can become about consumption and lifestyle rather than connection to people and place. They become weekend events, or expressions of self, or a nice vibe – not a life’s ordering. Real ritual, I am coming to realise, requires weight; a tie to story, belief, and responsibility — not just aesthetic revival. A harvest festival in a rural, overlooked parish like mine may be small, strange and inefficient. It will not be photogenic, but it will connect me and others to a stream of 2,000 years of worship here, and before that to millennia of agricultural rhythm-marking. It introduces me to people and farms, to old stories that have lain dormant like relics in the soil, to possibilities for my own faith and belonging.

I have been reading Paul Kingsnorth’s new book, Against the Machine. By ‘machine’ he means the nexus of power, wealth, ideology and technology that has emerged; a project of modernity “that is to replace nature with technology, and to rebuild the world in purely human shape, the better to fulfil the most ancient human dream: to become gods.” I suspect Kingsnorth would see the commercialisation of ancient rituals as a consequence of machine culture. Disconnecting the rituals from their origins and landscapes and relational ecosystems is to render them floating experiences, available to be purchased and claimed and bent to anyone’s will. A machine-friendly spirituality that strips mystery and, importantly, the cost of that spirituality – commitment, belonging, sacrifice, inconvenience.

Kingsnorth shows that the razing of old stories, communities, and traditions created a blank canvas that allowed for the success of the industrial revolution, and so today’s materialistic and economically-driven culture. And so I see hope in the interest and resurgence of old traditions, in our hunger for roots, in the reclaiming of stories that were once trampled and forgotten. But I think it matters whether they are resurrected as machine-friendly buyable experiences, or as ways of being that seek continuity with something older and truer, something outside of today’s dominant paradigms.

Anthropologist Victor Turner explored the ideas of liminality and communitas. Liminality refers to an ambiguous ‘between’ state where individuals are stripped of their usual social roles and statuses. Communitas is the unstructured social bond that emerges among people in this liminal state, creating a sense of equality, directness, and shared humanity that challenges formal social structures. Perhaps – in this time of climate change and AI and an increasingly unknowable future – we are all in a liminal space. Perhaps the revival of old rituals allows for direct human connection. Perhaps the wassail event, and others like it, encourages human connection in a fractured time. Perhaps they make the countryside into a sanctuary in unknowable times, and perhaps that is enough.

The Christian story does these things too, but I think it goes deeper still – it sanctifies time itself, embedding the rituals and seasons in liturgy, creating a steady rhythm that can hold community together without being dependent on trends or tickets. It is a story grown from a sacred supper, shared feasts, prayer, fasting, seeds, and rituals of death and new life. It is a story that binds together its hearers into relation and rhythm-making.

Christianity is not a neat ‘answer’ to the rootlessness and unbelonging of our time. But it offers old and tested examples of depth, continuity, and gratitude in ritual. It has of course long absorbed and re-shaped older rituals, born of older communities – like the Celts, who knew that place and time and land and people, animated by something beyond, could combine to create particular patterns and poetry which, when taken seriously, could deepen identity and togetherness with each other and the Earth. Christianity recognised this and built on it (and squashed it in places, but that is another story). I think that picking and choosing and bending old traditions, detaching them from time and place and cultural significance, even if just to remove religious baggage, reduces that old poetry to prose. It is no longer sustained by its original social and spiritual infrastructure.

Such an infrastructure, built over generations, connects us to a through-line of celebration, gratitude, lament, and renewal. Following this through line – which whether I’ve liked it or not has linked me to new and old expressions of the Christian faith – is what is helping me to find belonging and participation. The wassail I joined signified to me that I’m still on the search for belonging. I want to go to a Wassail event again, but I want to do it outside of the ‘machine’, in a place I am putting roots into, with trees that I help tend, lifting bread around a harvest table with others I am working to know. I still feel a tug to these old rituals, as if assessing their ability to provide orienting infrastructure to my life and to the life of community. But in this age of disconnection – of industrial food, global supply chains, loneliness – what I want is less curated experience and more real belonging. I hope to find a bit more of that at harvest time.

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