Same-Sex Marriage/Marriage Equality- Supreme Court Hearing- LIVE UPDATES - DAY 8

Justice Bhat: In all societies, barring a few, prohibited degrees of relationships exist in some manner or other.

Dwivedi: If we see history, we see that in Muslims it's different.

Dwivedi: Then the writer of article even says that the brother and sister can marry.

CJI DY Chandrachud: That doesn't pose a constitutional problem to us because there you recognise the interest of state.

Dwivedi: No my lords. One view is that marriage is up to the parties to define. Marriage becomes a fluid concept. What are the consequences of this? I'll show you this through an article. Then we'll have to knock down prohibited degrees.

Justice Bhat: There may be marriages where parties may not live together. There may be no matrimonial home. Marriages may not have any element of physical or sexual relations. So what is the content central to marriage is upon the spouses.

Justice Bhat: What is the content? What is marriage to each other? The content is decided voluntarily by each party. The spouses decide whether to have children- it's entirely their choice.

CJI DY Chandrachud: The next issue is that is heterosexuality a core element of marriage? Your submission is that as marriage has evolved and even today, whether it has social acceptance or not is state's interest.

CJI DY Chandrachud: We must accept as a basic proposition that marriage itself is entitled to constitutional protection. It is not just a matter of statutory recognition.

CJI DY Chandrachud: Having said that, it cannot be denied that state has a legitimate interest in regulating marriage.

CJI DY Chandrachud: Four, marriage is exclusionary to all others. People in a marriage to exclude all others from the marriage. Five, social acceptance of existence of marriage. Social acceptance is not confined to that individual but how society looks at that institution.

CJI: One, marriage itself postulates two individuals to cohabit. Two, marriage accompanies with it the existence of family. Three, marriage has procreation as a very important ingredient. Though, we must be cognizant that the validity of marriage is not conditional on it.