The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (HMA) is an Act of the Parliament of India that amends and codifies the law relating to marriage among Hindus, including Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs. Enacted on May 18, 1955, as part of the Hindu Code Bills, its primary purpose was to reform and unify the fragmented customary and textual Hindu law, which previously lacked a structured legal framework for marital disputes. The Act solved the problem of ambiguity and introduced progressive concepts like monogamy by prohibiting bigamy, which was not a strict legal requirement earlier.
The Act works by laying down conditions for a valid marriage under Section 5, which mandates monogamy and sets the minimum age at 21 for the groom and 18 for the bride. Section 7 recognizes the validity of a marriage solemnized according to the customary rites and ceremonies of either party, such as Saptapadi. The Act provides for matrimonial reliefs, including judicial separation under Section 10 and divorce under Section 13. The Hindu Marriage (Amendment) Act, 1976, was a significant change, inserting grounds for divorce like cruelty and desertion, and introducing divorce by mutual consent under Section 13B.
The HMA is closely connected to the other three major Hindu Code Bills: the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956. A recent, major development is the Supreme Court's ruling in Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan (2023), which recognized the court's power under Article 142 of the Constitution to grant divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage, a ground not explicitly provided in Section 13. The Act was also extended to the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in 2019.