Knotty affair: Pati, patni aur woe

Not money problem, not interfering in-laws and certainly not colluding careers. After dowry, it’s extra marital affairs which is shaking many a marriage to its core in Lucknow.
Nothing illustrates this better than a careful sifting of records at the Family Counselling Centre being run under the Women Protection Cell. Figures culled by Lucknow Times indicate that the number of infidelity related cases have spiralled to an all time high in the state capital.Sample this: Out of the 77 such cases registered at the centre since 1993, as many as 35 have been registered this year alone.
Predictably, a majority of the cases concern the upper strata of Lucknow’s high-brow society.
“This is certainly a very disturbing trend. Until recently, most of the complaints received by us related to harassment and dowry. But not so any more. Today it’s infidelity that has emerged as the number one cause of marriage break-ups,� says Rangit Priyakar Pandey, a counsellor at the centre.
Most complainants on this count are estranged wives, but there are also instances when even husbands have come at the centre to lodge complaints against their better halves for cheating them on the sly.
While extra marital affairs are blowing through marriages like a tornado, turning everything upside down and inside out, dowry disputes have accounted for the maximum number of break-ups over the years. But when a case is both about dowry and infidelity, the counsellors have a real problem at hand. “We routinely get cases wherein the husband has been found harassing his wife for dowry and also having illicit relations with another woman,� says Pandey. “These inter-related cases leave us in a quandary as we remain undecided whether to classify such cases under the category of dowry or infidelity,� he adds.
Curiously, it’s not love marriages but the time-tested arranged marriages which are going on the rocks in Lucknow. A staggering 852 cases pertain to arranged marriages — a stark contrast to the 45 cases of love marriage cases registered here. Counsellors at the centre, however, don’t feel that the variation is a true reflection of the picture. “The number of arranged marriages is far more than that of love marriages, hence the variation in figures,� he says.
mazhar.farooqui@timesgroup.com