CA Ganpat Singh Rajpurohit, Shree L R Tiwari College of Law
INTRODUCTION
In India, polygamy is prohibited. Although polygamy was common among aristocrats and emperors in ancient India and was not illegal, it is thought that polygamy was not a significant cultural practice. The absence of prohibition resulted partly from the judiciary's independence and partly from the fact that polygamy was portrayed in all of India's major religions as neutral.
For rulers and kings, polygamy predominated in ancient India, in contrast to Europe. It was typical for wealthy people who had several wives as well as rulers (like Bhupinder Singh of Patiala and Fateh Singh of Udaipur and Mewar).
The Indian Islamic provinces were allowed by the British colonial empire to allow husbands to have more than one wife. Four of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's wives and seven of his concubines adopted Sati after his cremation in Lahore, and their urn-shaped memorials can be found at his Samadhi.
The Indian Penal Code of 1860 forbade polygamy for Christians in sections 494 and 495. The Hindu Marriage Act, which forbade Hindus from marrying if their spouse was still alive, was drafted in 1955. Thus, in 1956, polygamy was outlawed in India for all Indian citizens, with the exception of Muslims, who are allowed to have four wives, and Hindus residing in Goa and other areas along the western coast, where bigamy is accepted.
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