Breaking the Sacred Institution of Marriage: A Dangerous Narrative by the Media
The recent Times of India article titled “Together but apart! Why some Indian couples are choosing LAT marriages” is yet another glaring example of how certain sections of the media are deliberately trying to erode the very foundation of Indian family values and India’s civilizational ethos.
Surprisingly, this is not just Times of India. Within weeks, India Today ran “Can ‘Living Apart Together’ marriages be a hit in India?”, Indian Express published “Love in separate spaces: Why Indian couples are embracing the ‘living apart together’ trend”, The Telegraph ran “LATent problems: Can love survive without living together?”, and Brides Today followed with “Why more married couples in India are choosing to live apart, together…”
Four leading publications, back-to-back, pushing the same narrative. Coincidence? Or a well-funded toolkit in action?
This another narrative is dangerous because Marriage in India is not just a contract between two individuals, it is a Samskar, a sacred commitment that binds two souls and two families. It is the cornerstone of our social and cultural fabric, ensuring stability, emotional security, and intergenerational continuity of values.
Promoting “LAT” (Living Apart Together) under the guise of modernity, feminism, and empowerment is nothing but an attempt to fracture the harmony of Indian families. LAT may be a coping mechanism in the West, where divorce rates are soaring, children grow up in broken homes, and loneliness has become a pandemic, but why should Bharat, which thrives on strong family bonds, import such a failed template?
This is the Western template which is imported and imposed upon Indians. In Western societies where divorce rates have skyrocketed, where children grow up in broken homes, and loneliness, LAT marriages emerged as an alternative to dysfunctional relationships. Why Should India — a civilization that has thrived for thousands of years on the strength of its familial bonds and family support systems, have always been the backbone of our resilience — import such failing models? Such narratives are alien to our ethos. The attempt to normalize these concepts by presenting rare cases (not even 0.001% of society) as a trend is misleading and malicious. Why adopt what the West is trying to fix?
Is it Feminism or Fragmentation? Under the garb of feminism and women empowerment, media houses are slyly pushing an agenda of isolation, detachment, and individualism. True empowerment lies in partnership, equality, and shared responsibility, not in promoting physical separation as a solution to marital challenges.
The narrative that distance strengthens love is not just flawed, it is a calculated attempt to weaken the institution of marriage, which is central to Sanatan Dharma and Indian society.
This is not an isolated attempt. From glorifying same-sex marriage, to mocking traditional roles, to pushing a boy to feel like a girl, to now romanticizing LAT, this is larger designed agenda to erode the Indian family system, the single strongest pillar of social stability in our civilization.
Media packages this as “choice” and “progress”, but progress does not mean cultural suicide.
The essence of marriage is companionship… sharing joys and sorrows, building a life together, raising children in an environment of trust and love. Yes, challenges exist in every relationship, but solutions lie in dialogue, understanding, and mutual adjustment, not in creating artificial distance.
We must call out such narrative warfare and misleading journalism; and reaffirm our faith in Indian values that celebrate family as the nucleus of society. Modernity need not mean abandoning tradition. True progress is when we blend contemporary aspirations with timeless values — not when we copy flawed Western experiments blindly.
Marriage is not a cage. It is companionship. And companionship thrives on togetherness… not distance.
