Valley
Revision sought to incidental marriage clause
Lawmakers have filed an amendment proposal to a clause in the Civil Code bill that considers a couple with a child automatically married, except when the child is born out of rape or incest.The clause goes against the 1998 Supreme Court verdict which ordered that live-in relationships with or without children could not be considered marital relationships. In the landmark case of Annapurna versus Kathmandu District Court, the plaintiff, Annapurna Rana, had argued that she should be eligible for sustenance (mana chamal) from her parents since she was unmarried and only living together with a man. Her parents had insisted that since she had a child with the man, she must be married to him. The Kathmandu District Court upheld the parents’ view; the apex court overturned it. The clause also undercuts the provision in the Civil Code that protects an individual’s freedom to marry whomever they choose.
“Marriage is and should be about love, not coercion,” said CPN-UML lawmaker Krishna Bhakta Pokharel, who, along with around 30 fellow parliamentarians, registered their reservations with the clause on Thursday. “We are trying to build a world where a woman alone can give her child an identity. To think that a child binds a couple together in matrimony is to undermine a child’s right to identity through her mother.”
Drafters of the code, however, say that the clause is women friendly and is there to protect women against sexual exploitation. The bill is yet to be discussed in Parliament.