"If any couple chooses to consummate their sexual cravings, then..."

"... that act becomes a total commitment with adherence to all consequences that may follow, except on certain exceptional considerations," said the judge.

“The wording in the judgment seems odd, but it’s a way of addressing the larger issue of rights of persons over one another when they are in such unions,” said Urvashi Butalia, a feminist writer and founder of Zubaan, a nonprofit publishing house.

“I think that the statement that couples who have sexual relations are to be considered married is a bit absurd,” she said. “It brings in a morality that should not be there.”...

[H]aving sex before marriage is still widely condemned in India. Last year, a Delhi High Court judge, as he imposed a jail sentence on a woman convicted of killing her live-in boyfriend, described such relations as a “fad” and an “infamous Western cultural product.”