NAVIGATING MODERNITY AND TRADITION: A LEGAL, SOCIO-CULTURAL, AND CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF LIVE-IN RELATIONSHIPS IN INDIA

India finds itself today navigating between two competing normative universes: a constitutional vision of guarantee of liberty, dignity and equality to each individual and a social order that remains substantially structured around the institution of marriage, caste endogamy, and patriarchal families. Live-in relationships – coexistence of two adults in a marriage-like relationship without entering into the solemnity of marriage – find themselves right at this fault line. They are neither explicitly proscribed by any central legislation, nor explicitly permitted; their legal status has therefore been almost exclusively determined through judicial construction of the Constitution, patchwork through the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and recently, through state-level codification, such as the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code . This article will map the constitutional basis of the right to cohabitate, chronicle the evolution of judicial doctrine, analyze the socio-cultural pushback that remains an impediment to enforcement and social acceptance, and investigate the recent legislative interventions in the space before arriving at an assessment of the future of live-in relationships under Indian law.