Divorce now a common word, say experts

The latest reports of troubled marriage have hit Arun Nayar- Liz Hurley and Big Boss 4 participants Ali Merchant and Sara Ali.

Experts say divorce rate is at a high as the social stigma associated with it in middle class is fast disappearing.

"In the absence of joint families, people don`t even know what are family and marriage values are. They don`t even get time to understand why are they getting married in first place," says Dr Kamal Khurana, a Delhi-based marriage and relationship therapist.

There is no concrete data available on the number of divorces taking place in Delhi but divorce lawyer Osama Suhail says it is in the range of 6,000 to 8,000 per year.

"The role of women in the family is changing as they are doing jobs and matching steps with their husbands. They are being more assertive and in many cases, it leads to a divorce," says Suhail.

Divorce rate is as low as 1.1 per cent in India as compared to 50 per cent in USA but the cases are on rise in metros than the rural areas.

"The family fabric is intact in villages as we have joint families. But in metros, couples suffer from the consumer mentality. They see marriage as just another service and they want to change it if it`s not working properly," says Khurana.

The reason for rise in divorce cases in capital than the other cities is also because people are more career oriented and materialistic here and as a result, they have no time for family.

uhail has an interesting reason behind it.

"Victims can get more maintenance here compared to other parts of India as salary packages are higher. In one of my recent cases, a woman got one lakh as maintenance per month after divorce," he says.

Vivek Pahwa, CEO of the website secondshaadi.com which helps people to find a spouse after a divorce says there are around two lakh registered users on his website all over India.
      
"Out of them, around 25 per cent belong to Delhi and it ranks highest in number of divorcees seeking a match," says Pahwa.