Madras High Court on Consensual Sex & Marriage: Rational Judgment, Irrational Exburence

The latest Madras High court verdict on sex & marriage has created uproars and comments across India. Humourous and varied tweets such as 'Buy kamasutra, get mangalsutra(the holy thread tied around the women's neck signifying marriage) free' to the new right question being 'when you lost virginity' and not when you got married are doing rounds on social networks such as twitter & facebook.

The public comments on the judgment are an interesting example of the irrational human exuberance and limited rationality we often display. Seeing as a possible infringement on their personal lives, individuals specially the self-proclaiming 'Modern' Indian youth are finding the judgment to be a worrisome precedent. Questions lurking an average teenage mind in the backdrop of the judgment such as if kissing is equivalent of getting married, shows a general state of mental flux and human tendency to generalize a fact-specific judgment.

It would have been rather wise to wait and read the entire judgment. The judgment needs to be appreciated in its contextual backdrop. The facts of the case are very peculiar presenting a certain set of circumstances based on which the court had to decide the relationship status of the couple(if I can take the liberty to use the word!) and the legitimacy of their children. The man and the woman(to use the liberally correct expression) had two children together and infact when the lady had gone for the caesrian during the delivery of the second child, the man had signed on the papers in the hospital giving written consent for the operation. It was in the backdrop of these circumstantial evidence that the court had to decide if the man and lady could be legally presumed to be married. The background of the parties also needs to be appreciated. In a traditional Indian backdrop coming from a conservative religious background, the man and woman in the present circumstance could not be classified as being part of the so-called modern Indian, who tweet and facebook every event of their lives; rather they are representative of a mediocre average Indian and the woman in particular who wanted justice by getting her marriage recognized. She was not a modern Indian or high flying corporate who could afford the luxury of loving and forgetting, she was not the affluent well employed who could bring up her two children on her own. Simply put, she was an average non-working Indian woman, who unfortunately was confronted with the challenging circumstances. The 60% of rural India and the rest of 40% of 'modern' India are two worlds. While the former suffers, the latter tweets and facebooks in their air-conditioned offices and homes. The two India live in two insulated worlds with two different sets of priorities and two different value systems. Worse still, they are blissfully unaware of one another's existence. So while one hails the decision as justice, the other apprehends it as an infringement on their liberties. None is right or wrong; it is just that the two live in two different worlds and each looks at the decision from their prism. 

The judgment reflects the challenging set of circumstances in which the Justice had to deliver the judgment and give relief to the suffering lady. And the irrational exuberance gives behavioural economists a reason to smile. After all very correct when they talk about our bounded rationality substantiated by the tweets and facebook status resulting from the decision. Overall a descriptive incidence of irrational exuberance!