The >Madras High Court’s observations on premarital sex evoked amused reactions among the Twitterati, with some regulars trying their best to contain themselves in the short burst of 140 characters.
There were also the odd conversations on the nature of the observations made by the Court. As is the case generally, some of the tweets were nasty with direct references to politicians and film stars, but there was also a lot of levity with some of the Tweeters amused that they may have already been married a few times, at least.
“Looks like the Madras HC has taken a page out of our Tamil village cinema and given it a modern twist,” tweeted Vijay Srivatsan, referring to the many sequences in movies where the village heads (‘nattamai’ in Tamil) are often shown delivering spot verdicts on premarital sex and rape. In most cases, the ‘nattamais’ seem to favour declaring the couple in question as “married”.
Actor Kushboo Sunder, who has earlier faced a court case on charges of endorsing premarital sex, tweeted, “If ppl have sex b4 marriage it equals marriage but is not premarital sex??? Huh Please what is it called in your dictionary? Lol.”
A few also saw how the situation could lead to blackmail, should one of the couple decide to simply break away. They also wondered what the Madras High Court meant by “documentary proof of sexual relationship”.
Some tweets became threaded conversations. Jayakumar Palanivel, founder of an IT start-up, tweeted, “Marriage is not parental consent and stupid ceremonies. It is just a commitment/trust between each other. So sex = marriage,” but was quickly rebutted by fellow Tweeter James Ramya Rajan who said, “so by your logic, sex = commitment and trust. Surely you gotta be kidding.”
Mr. Palanivel, after some banter, said, “I said the judgement is revolutionary because it makes marriage as an institution less relevant.”
Bijon Keswani wondered, “Imagine all the friends considered married suddenly?”
V. Gokul tweeted, “Will the law retrofit? How many wives will I end up having? Oh my.”
