Important Public Marriage Records

Marriage is arguably the biggest occasion in one's life. Of course, Birth and Death are just as significant but in terms of the fuss generally taken by the individual, Marriage is the one, hands down. It's a joyful occasion for such a heavenly union but alas, a great many of them would turn sour eventually, resulting in divorce. According to statistics, close to half of Americans who ever married got divorced subsequently.
Marriage records are public records. As such, anyone has the right to access and view anybody's marriage records as long as procedures are followed. Public Marriage Records are readily available at their responsible government agency so there's no reason now for people to be in the dark about their partner's marital history.
Public Marriage Records fall under state jurisdiction. They are one of the vital public records along with Divorce, Birth and Death. Most states now have a central repository where official records and documents are archived. Marriage Records can be classified as Confidential in special cases but the bulk of them fall under public category. The standard information found in public marriage records typically include personal particulars of the couple, their parents', witnesses' and also the name of the officiant of the marriage ceremony. Some related records may also appear alongside the marriage records such as Divorce and Birth Records.
Although public marriage records have existed for a long time, it wasn't until the advent of computerization and internet that they caught on. It is easy and convenient to access and retrieve public marriage records these days. What used to be a long and tedious process involving lawyers and investigators is now a breeze and mostly conducted in do-it-yourself (DIY) fashion too. Both the cost and time involved in gathering these records is down to only a fraction of what it used to take in the old days.
The two basic versions of public marriage records are the free-of-charge (FOC) and the fee-based records. FOC records tend to be raw and scattered. As such, they often require further work subsequent to the retrieval to be of any use. Fee-based public marriage records are recommended when the search is more purposeful, especially if they are to be produced for formal use. Competition in this industry is keen so prices are regulated to very reasonable levels in tandem. Unless you are the type who actually enjoys the grunt work of assembling reports from scratch public sources, a little financial outlay can go a long way for you if you look in the right places.

Divorce Within India

All major religions have their own laws which govern divorces within their own community, and separate regulations exist regarding divorce in interfaith marriages.
Hindus, including Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains, are governed by the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955; Christians by the Indian Divorce Act, 1869; Parsis by the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936; and Muslims by the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, which provides the grounds on which women can obtain a divorce, and the uncodified civil law. Civil marriages and inter-community marriages and divorces are governed by the Special Marriage Act, 1956 .Other community specific legislation includes the Native Converts’ Marriage Dissolution Act, 1866 that allows a Hindu to appeal for a divorce if a spouse converts to Christianity.

Grounds for Divorce
In most Western nations, there are approximately 16 distinct reasons for which divorces are granted. In India, however, only five main reasons are generally accepted as sufficient grounds for divorce.
Adultery. While no formal definition of adultery exists, it does have “a fairly established meaning in matrimonial law”, namely “the voluntary sexual intercourse of a married man or woman with a person other than the offender’s wife or husband”. While the law considers it valid grounds for either sex, adulterous women are “judged more harshly” than men.
The various religious regulations are not unanimous on this issue. The law regarding Hindus allows divorce to be granted on the grounds of infidelity of either husband or wife. The Christian law, however, would traditionally not have granted a divorce to a woman solely on the grounds of adultery. She would have had to prove another violation, such as cruelty .A recent Bombay High Court decision “recognised cruelty and desertion as independent grounds for the dissolution of a Christian marriage,” striking down a section of the law that allowed for an unconstitutional distinction between the sexes.
Desertion. The three main components of desertion are the “disruption of cohabitation, absence of just or reasonable cause and their combination throughout three years” before the abandoned spouse may petition for a divorce. There also must be an obvious intent on the part of the offending spouse to remain permanently apart from the other. This statute also applies to cases in which a spouse has been heard from for at least seven years .
Cruelty. As with adultery, “the definition of the type of behavior that constitutes cruelty varies according to the gender of the petitioner” of the divorce. “Despite the fact that cruelty is often equally available to husbands and wives, the way in which the law is interpreted and applied suggests that women and men are evaluated by rather different standards” .This category includes both physical and mental abuse and neglect.
A court decision made in early May 1997 made cruelty sufficient grounds for a Christian woman to obtain a; previously, the law required both adultery and cruelty to be proven. The national Indian Christian community seems to have embraced this judgment.
Impotency. This refers to the physical inability of the couple to consummate the marriage or the refusal by one spouse to do so. Some cases have established that sterility can be construed to mean non-consummation if the other partner is not aware of the condition before the marriage.
Chronic Disease. Both mental and physical illnesses are included in this category, as well as sexually transmitted diseases. Not all religions recognize identical diseases as grounds for divorce. Christians and Parsis do not allow divorce for a sexually transmitted disease or leprosy while the other communities do.