Bareilly Women Marriage: Deceived by Husbands, Two UP Women Find Love and ‘Marry’ Each Other | Bareilly News
BAREILLY: In a small temple not far from Bareilly’s district court, two women stood side by side on Tuesday morning, surrounded not by family but by lawyers. There were no garlands or rituals steeped in tradition — only a shared decision to forge a new path together, one that diverged sharply from the ones they had once walked.Each had been married to a man who withheld the truth about his religious identity, a deception that unravelled not just the legal contract of marriage but their sense of personal trust. What followed for both women was estrangement — from their families, social norms, and certainty itself. What brought them together was that shared fracture.Asha, 27, who now goes by the name Golu, lives in Delhi and works at a baby care centre. Jyoti, 29, is from Civil Lines in Budaun and is the elder of two sisters. When they met at a factory in Delhi three months ago, their conversations were, at first, simply a form of survival — trading stories, finding solidarity in small truths. But soon they noticed parallels that extended beyond coincidence. Both had been misled at a fundamental level by men they were expected to trust implicitly.Both had walked away, unsupported. Both were trying, quietly, to rebuild.Their closeness deepened not through grand gestures but through the accumulation of smaller moments — workday chats, shared meals, evenings filled with the rare comfort of not having to explain. Eventually, they began to imagine a life together. “We have lost trust in men,” Jyoti said. “We decided to marry when we felt we understood each other.” Theirs is not a legally recognised marriage, at least not under Indian law. But it is a declaration. “If our families support us, that’s fine,” Golu said. “Otherwise, we’ll live together in Delhi. We plan to work, live well, and build a home when our budget allows.”While the Supreme Court decriminalised same-sex relationships in 2018 by reading down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, same-sex marriages still hold no legal standing in India. Lawyer Diwakar Verma, who witnessed the temple wedding, said, “Two women approached us, expressing their desire to marry. The Constitution grants them the right to live together.” Their decision echoes similar stories emerging from parts of Uttar Pradesh, where women — pushed to the margins by marital betrayal or domestic abuse — have sought solace and stability in companionship outside convention. In Jan 2025, two women from Deoria—Kavita and Gunja alias Bablu — left behind abusive husbands and “married” at a temple after meeting on Instagram. In 2018, two women from Hamirpur who had once been in love reunited after years of separation forced by arranged marriages. They divorced their respective husbands and formalised their relationship, though without legal validation.
