Hmm! She lives in the same house with her boyfriend and her husband. Really cool arrangement!
Indian marries temporary husband
By Rajiv Khanna
BBC News, Ahmedabad
A 19-year-old girl in the west Indian state of Gujarat has temporarily married her lover’s elder brother so she can live in the same house.
Sneha Patel eloped with her boyfriend, Yash Parmar, but discovered later that they could not marry legally.
Yash is 19. The legal age for marriage in Indian law is 18 for women and 21 for men and living with partners is traditionally not acceptable.
Elder brother Dharmesh has agreed to divorce Sneha when Yash is of age.
Unhappy mother
The marriage between Dharmesh and Sneha took place at a temple in June this year.
Yash and Dharmesh are college students and their parents, Kishen Parmar and Manjula Parmar, who live in Ahmedabad, have agreed to the arrangement.
However, Sneha’s widowed mother, Kailash Patel, is unhappy.
“What will happen if Dharmesh refuses to divorce her two years later or Yash refuses to marry her?” she asks.
Ms Patel went to the police when her daughter went missing after her mother had expressed reservations about Sneha getting married to Yash.
Yash is of a lower caste background.
Police inspector, HB Rajput, who investigated the case said they could not intervene.
"When we went to the Parmar household, we were shown the document showing the marriage between Sneha and Dharmesh.
"Both are eligible adults and can get married. We have no documentary evidence of the deal within the family,‘’ Mr Rajput told the BBC.
It is believed that a document in which Dharmesh has promised to divorce Sneha after two years is being kept with a relative.
Sneha says Dharmesh has made a major sacrifice for her.
She said he might be her husband on paper but for her he was both her brother-in-law and a brother.
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