When Marriages Collapse: The Legal System at a Crossroads

What happens when the very laws designed to protect individuals in a marriage become weapons of personal vendetta or shields for systemic abuse? Allegations replace what society should do when love turns litigious, and trust? 

Between 2021 and 2025, India’s legal and social landscape surrounding marriage has been revealing and deeply troubling. From a rising tide of divorce petitions to the tragic persistence of dowry deaths, from allegations of misuse of Section 498A IPC to the increasingly common claims of rape on the false promise of marriage—each trend represents a chipping away at the once-sacred ideal of marriage. 

At the core of this transformation lies a complex interplay between gender rights, legal protection, and institutional integrity. Protective laws, especially those addressing dowry harassment and marital cruelty, have long been essential tools in the fight for justice for Indian women. However, reports of false allegations, legal manipulation, and low conviction rates have also stirred a parallel conversation—one that questions the balance between empowering the victim and ensuring due process for the accused. 

As the pandemic disrupted domestic life, exposing vulnerabilities in relationships and mental health, it also intensified scrutiny on the legal frameworks that govern marital conflict. In this editorial, we examine whether the Indian legal system is equipped to discern truth from manipulation in an increasingly adversarial matrimonial space—and whether public discourse can rise above polarization to seek fair, gender-just, and evidence-based reform. 

Because when marriages become battlefields, the law is no longer just a shield—it becomes the terrain. 

The numbers speak louder than assumptions. Marital discord in India has grown significantly between 2021 and 2025, and it’s not just about divorce rates. From broken engagements to separation filings, from emotional abuse to irreconcilable differences, there has been a visible shift in how Indian couples navigate conflict within marriage. 

Much of this disruption, experts suggest, can be traced back to the pandemic years, which acted like a pressure cooker for domestic life. Lockdowns trapped couples in confined spaces, financial anxieties soared, and personal coping mechanisms broke down. While some relationships emerged stronger, many others crumbled, especially in urban India, where personal independence and expectations of emotional fulfilment in marriage have become more pronounced. 

This period also saw a marked rise in divorce petitions, particularly filed by women, signalling both empowerment and unrest. In contrast, many rural and semi-urban regions reported a spike in domestic violence and dowry-related complaints, often without the safety nets or legal awareness needed to address them effectively. 

But it's not just social stressors driving this shift. A deeper transformation is underway—a redefinition of what marriage means. Younger generations, especially women, are less tolerant of emotional neglect, coercive control, and abuse, rightly so. However, this growing assertiveness is also bumping up against a judicial system not fully equipped to handle the emotional complexity, legal ambiguity, and sheer volume of marital disputes. 

Marriage in India today is no longer just a social institution—it has become a site of contestation, negotiation, and, increasingly, litigation. And this shift sets the stage for deeper tensions in how we perceive protection, justice, and accountability within intimate relationships. 

When Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code was introduced in 1983, it was a landmark moment. For the first time, the law acknowledged the ugly, often invisible reality of cruelty faced by women within marriage, particularly related to dowry harassment. It empowered women to seek legal recourse against physical and mental abuse, and over time, it became a critical tool in the fight against domestic violence and patriarchal control. 

But with rising awareness has come rising misuse—or at least, rising claims of it. 

Between 2021 and 2025, courts and police stations across the country witnessed a significant increase in dowry-related complaints. While many of these cases were genuine cries for help, the judicial system also flagged a growing number of false or exaggerated allegations, often filed as retaliation in bitter marital disputes. Some complaints, as data from the document suggests, were lodged after long gaps, with little to no evidence, leading to acquittals in nearly 80% of cases. 

This has created a legal and ethical dilemma. On one side, there's the fear of delegitimizing real survivors by overemphasizing the misuse narrative. On the other hand, there's the risk of unjustly criminalizing entire families, including elderly parents or siblings, based solely on a spouse’s complaint, without adequate investigation. 

The judiciary, for its part, has started pushing back against blind acceptance of such FIRs. In several high-profile judgments, courts have urged for preliminary inquiries before arrests, and recommended mediation or counselling in non-severe cases. This shift underscores a deeper realization: laws intended to protect can also be misused if not applied with caution and fairness. 

Still, that doesn’t make the original problem disappear. Dowry-related cruelty, both physical and psychological, continues to claim lives. What’s needed is balance—legal safeguards that protect genuine victims while ensuring due process for the accused. Otherwise, the courtroom becomes yet another battleground in already fractured marriages. 

One of the most legally and ethically complex issues to surface in recent years is the rise in rape allegations made on the pretext of a false promise of marriage. Between 2021 and 2025, there has been a marked increase in FIRs under Section 375 of the IPC (now Section 69 of the BNS), where women allege that sexual relations took place with consent—but that consent was obtained through deceit, in the form of a promise to marry that was later broken. 

At the heart of these cases lies a deeply sensitive question: When does a failed relationship turn into a criminal act? 

In many instances, these complaints are filed after long-term relationships break down, either due to parental disapproval, caste barriers, or personal differences. The complainant, feeling emotionally betrayed or socially shamed, turns to the legal system to seek redress. In such cases, courts are increasingly being asked to differentiate between a consensual relationship gone wrong and one where consent was never freely given but coerced under pretenses. 

The challenge? The line between emotional manipulation and legal culpability is thin and blurry. While some cases reveal a clear pattern of exploitation—where men deliberately feigned commitment to obtain sexual favors—others emerge from mutual relationships that simply didn’t culminate in marriage. 

The judiciary has responded with caution. Recent verdicts have emphasized the need to establish malicious intent from the beginning, rather than criminalizing every failed relationship. In several rulings, the Supreme Court and High Courts have quashed FIRs where they found no deliberate deception, underlining that a broken promise doesn’t automatically imply rape. 

Still, the broader implications remain troubling. On one hand, genuine victims of coercion and deceit deserve legal protection and justice. On the other hand, there's a growing concern over weaponizing legal provisions in personal vendettas. Both outcomes have serious consequences—not just for the individuals involved, but for the credibility of gender justice itself. 

Ultimately, this trend calls for nuanced legal interpretation, empathetic policing, and, more importantly, public awareness about what constitutes consent, coercion, and crime in a society where personal relationships are rapidly evolving, but the laws governing them are still catching up. 

While debates around false allegations and legal misuse continue to make headlines, the brutal reality of dowry deaths and marital murders hasn’t gone away—it has only become more layered, more horrifying, and, disturbingly, more normalized in certain pockets of the country. 

Between 2021 and 2025, India continued to report thousands of cases of women dying under mysterious or violent circumstances within the first few years of marriage, many of which were recorded under Section 304B IPC (dowry death). In some cases, women were found burned or poisoned. In others, they were driven to suicide after relentless mental and emotional abuse. Behind these deaths lies a chilling truth: for many families, the idea of a woman as property tied to financial exchange still prevails. 

What’s even more troubling is the emergence of premeditated murders, often disguised as accidents or suicides, when dowry demands aren’t met. These are not crimes of passion—they are calculated acts, sometimes involving the husband's family, with the hope that the legal consequences will be minimal or avoidable. 

And that’s where the system often falters. 

Despite strong laws on paper, the conviction rates in dowry death cases remain shockingly low, owing to poor investigation, lack of timely forensic evidence, and societal pressure on victims’ families to stay silent or settle. Witness intimidation, particularly in-laws threatening the woman’s natal family, remains a powerful deterrent to justice. 

Add to this the underreporting in rural areas, where many women are married off young and lack awareness or access to legal aid, d—and the problem takes on a much darker tone. These women often die unnamed, their stories buried along with their hopes. 

The disconnect is stark: while false cases get amplified in media narratives, the real and ongoing violence faced by thousands of women remains underrepresented. Yes, misuse of legal provisions must be addressed, but it should never come at the cost of downplaying the persistent brutality that some women endure behind closed doors. 

The challenge, then, is twofold: to ensure that legal provisions are not diluted in the name of reform, and to strengthen mechanisms that support early intervention, timely investigation, and survivor protection—so that justice doesn’t arrive too late, or not at all. 

In today’s hyper-connected world, public opinion doesn’t wait for court verdicts—it is often shaped, reshaped, and broadcast in real time by news outlets, influencers, and anonymous users behind social media handles. The rise in marital disputes, dowry cases, and rape allegations on the pretext of marriage has been accompanied by a parallel trial in the court of public opinion—one where nuance is rarely welcome. 

Whether it’s a viral video, a leaked FIR, or a sensational headline, the media often plays both investigator and judge, long before the judiciary has had a chance to examine the facts. On one hand, this visibility has helped survivors of abuse find a voice, raise awareness, and draw attention to systemic failures. But on the other hand, it has also resulted in trial by media, where reputations are destroyed overnight, and cases are judged through the lens of outrage rather than evidence. 

Social media has added a layer of intensity to this dynamic. It enables stories—true, false, or exaggerated—to spread like wildfire. Hashtag activism, while powerful, often thrives on binaries: guilty or innocent, victim or villain. And in marital dispute cases, where the lines are rarely clear-cut, this can lead to public misjudgment, character assassination, and long-term mental health consequences for both parties. 

More worryingly, this environment has created a fear among genuine complainants who worry that their stories might be disbelieved or mocked. At the same time, it fuels skepticism around women’s complaints, with a growing section of the public questioning the legitimacy of every dowry or rape allegation—no matter how credible. 

This narrative tug-of-war distorts the real issue: the need for gender-just, evidence-led, and empathetic legal responses. When media discourse becomes polarized, the space for reasoned debate and systemic reform shrinks. And in that noise, the very people the law is meant to protect—genuine survivors as well as the falsely accused—get lost. 

What’s needed is not silence but responsible storytelling. The media has an important role in highlighting injustice, but it must do so without sensationalism, respecting both the presumption of innocence and the pain of those who come forward. 

At the heart of the chaos surrounding marital dispute cases lies a truth that few want to admit: India’s legal machinery is overwhelmed, under-resourced, and often ill-equipped to handle the emotional and evidentiary complexity of such matters. 

Between 2021 and 2025, while the number of complaints—ranging from dowry harassment to rape on false promise of marriage—saw a noticeable rise, the rate of conviction remained discouragingly low. In many cases, the accused were acquitted due to a lack of evidence, poor investigation, or hostile witnesses. This, however, doesn't always imply that the complaint was false—it often reflects a broken system that fails both the victim and the accused. 

The courts are flooded with pending matrimonial cases, and judges are forced to sift through emotionally charged, poorly investigated, and sometimes manipulative narratives. Police, already burdened with routine law and order duties, often lack the time, sensitivity, or training to deal with marital complaints, which require a far more nuanced approach than standard criminal cases. 

Investigations into these cases tend to be rushed or shallow. Critical evidence is lost, statements are not recorded properly, and mediation attempts are poorly facilitated, leaving everyone frustrated and unheard. Add to that a lack of coordinated counselling or mental health support, and the result is a legal process that leaves families more fractured than before. 

Moreover, no clear mechanism exists to separate genuine cases from those driven by retaliation or negotiation leverage, which leads to blanket skepticism in the courtroom. The courts often operate from a defensive posture, torn between protecting women from systemic abuse and avoiding the misuse of protective provisions. 

The outcome? Justice becomes a slow, unpredictable, and emotionally exhausting ordeal, making the courtroom feel more like a punishment than a path to resolution. 

If we are to move forward, there is a pressing need to reform how these cases are investigated, processed, and resolved. This includes: 

• Specialized family and matrimonial courts with trained judges,  

• Time-bound investigation protocols,  

• Mediation support backed by trained mental health professionals,  

• And stronger guidelines for separating civil marital disputes from criminal intent.  

Because without structural change, we risk turning every failed relationship into a war, and every courtroom into a casualty zone. 

The conversation around marital disputes, dowry laws, and false allegations is often painted in extremes—either you're with the victims or you're defending the accused. But in reality, what the situation demands is neither blind faith nor blanket suspicion. It requires balance. Nuance. And the courage to admit that our current system is faltering on both ends. 

India’s protective laws were never the problem. Their spirit, rooted in safeguarding the vulnerable from abuse, remains crucial. But the problem arises when these laws are wielded without scrutiny, due process, or proper investigation, leading to outcomes that neither deliver justice to genuine victims nor protect the wrongly accused. 

What’s needed now is reform, not rollback. And that reform must be both legal and cultural. 

On the legal front, the solution lies in: 

• Codifying clearer procedural safeguards, such as mandatory preliminary inquiries before arrests under Section 498A.  

• Mandating asset and intent verification mechanisms in false promise of marriage cases.  

• Establishing independent oversight bodies to evaluate the merits of complaints before they escalate into full-blown trials.  

• And ensuring that mediation and counselling aren’t treated as optional add-ons, but as integral parts of the resolution process.  

But laws alone can’t fix what society won’t face. We also need to address the underlying cultural narratives that fuel both gender-based violence and gender-based manipulation. This means challenging dowry expectations at their roots. It means teaching consent and emotional literacy in schools. It means encouraging both men and women to seek therapy, support, and resolution before resorting to courts. 

Justice doesn’t have to come at the cost of compassion. And gender justice isn’t a zero-sum game. 

In the end, a truly just system is one where the abused are protected, the falsely accused are exonerated, and the law functions not as a blunt instrument but as a thoughtful, calibrated tool of healing and accountability. 

Because in the emotionally charged terrain of marriage and relationships, the goal shouldn't be to win a case—it should be to resolve a crisis. 

Conclusion: Justice in the Grey Areas 

Marriage, in its ideal form, is built on trust, love, and mutual respect. But as the cases from 2021 to 2025 reveal, when that foundation crumbles, it often takes the legal system with it. What begins as a personal conflict can quickly evolve into a public legal battle—one where the law must walk a tightrope between protection and fairness, between belief and proof, between emotion and evidence. 

This editorial has navigated the complexity of marital disputes, from genuine dowry abuse and dowry deaths to the rising tide of false allegations and emotional manipulation. It has examined how media narratives shape public perception, how the judiciary is struggling to keep pace, and how institutional shortcomings often compound personal tragedy. 

But beneath it all lies one truth: justice must serve both the vulnerable and the wrongly accused. To do that, we must stop seeing reform as betrayal or as weakness. We must stop assuming that protecting women’s rights means sacrificing fairness for men—or vice versa. It’s time to build a system that understands nuance, encourages dialogue, and demands accountability from all sides. 

The Supreme Court’s recent efforts to strengthen asset transparency among judges show that institutional change is possible when public pressure meets internal reflection. The same spirit must now be applied to family law and gender justice. 

Because justice not only needs to be done—it must also be seen to be done.  And in the emotionally charged battlefield of marital conflict, that visibility begins with the courage to let light in.