It’s often said in India that marriages are for eternity. And there’s even data to support it: According to the UN Women’s Progress of the World’s Women report, India has one of the lowest divorce rates in the world — only 1.1 percent of women aged 45-49 were divorced by 2010. However, this does not necessarily mean these marriages are happy; in fact, according to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) data in recent years, a higher number of those in unhappy marriages seem to be choosing death over divorce.
According to the NCRB report, Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India, released last month, marital problems have driven about 37,591 people to suicide between 2016 and 2020 — an average of about 20 people daily. The data, reveals that of these, divorce has driven 2,688 people (about 7 percent of the total) to end their lives. This means 13 times as many people died by suicide due to non-divorce-related issues. The report also shows that the number of women who committed suicide owing to ‘marriage-related issues’ was more than that of men
Reasons for marriages ending in suicides.
A detailed analysis of the reasons cited under ‘marriage-related suicides’ reveals that dowry — an illegal practice in which the groom’s family demands money and other material benefits from the bride’s family — is the biggest killer among women, but non-settlement of marriage (difference between spouses) edges it out in the total tally.
Overall, there have been 10,282 suicides due to dowry, while non-settlement of marriage accounted for 10,584 deaths. There has been an average of 2,056 suicides every year due to dowry, while the figure for non-settlement of marriage was 2,100 people per year. Extramarital affairs caused 1,100 suicides per year or a five-year total of 5,737.
As mentioned above, divorce has been the reason for 2,600 suicide deaths, while the rest have been classified as ‘others’ in the NCRB report, without specifying the reasons. The total number of women who died by suicide due to any marriage-related reason between 2016 and 2020 was 21,570 while the number of men was 16,021. In the past five years, dowry has been the cause of suicide for 9,385 women, which means 1,877 per year, or five women every day.
If divorce reduces the chances of suicide, why do so many people continue to remain in bad marriages?
“Fear can be a great thing, as it is your brain’s way of protecting you from potential hazards. It is when you become immobilised by fear and stop taking action or making the right decisions. that’s when things get tricky,” said Richa Hora, founder of Metaanoi, an organisation based in Delhi, that provides family counseling, ranging from relationships to marital counseling.
“(People) say they want to stay in the marriage because of the children; they keep reminding themselves of good memories, and of course, financial and social security. The biggest problem is that people have been conditioned to normalise a bad marriage”.
Geeta Luthra, senior advocate at the Supreme Court of India told that the biggest reason for suicide is depression, which is “poorly accounted for”.
“The quality of marriage counseling is also not well developed. Think of it this way, if a bad marriage is troubling you mentally, staying in it will pain you 24 hours a day,” she said.
“But if you separate yourself from the atmosphere, that toxicity, and reduce the suffering to either one hour a day or to none at all — you are emotionally well-off — which could explain the low suicide rate among divorcees,” she added.