Christian personal law
religious law in India
Christian personal law or family law regulates adoption, divorce, guardianship, marriage and succession in India. The provisions of canon law concerning marriage are recognised as the personal law of Roman Catholics in India (except in the state of Goa). Marriages of Indian Christians are regulated by the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872. Christian personal law is not applicable in Goa; instead, the Goa civil code (also known as Goa Family Law) is the set of civil laws that regulate the residents of the Indian state of Goa. In India as a whole, there are religion-specific civil codes that separately govern adherents of different religions. Goa is an exception to that rule in that a single secular code governs all Goans, irrespective of religion, ethnicity or linguistic affiliation.
Adoption
Christians in India can adopt children by resorting to section 41 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2006 and the guidelines and rules issued by various state governments.
Divorce
Both husband and wife can seek a divorce on the grounds of:
Adultery
Cruelty
Desertion for more than seven years
Insanity for more than two years
Incurable leprosy for more than two years
Conversion to another religion
Willful refusal to consummate the marriage
Not being heard from for 7 years
Venereal disease in communicable form for two years
Failure to obey the order for restitution of conjugal rights
However, the wife can additionally sue for divorce on the grounds of:
Rape
Sodomy
Bestiality
Incest
Guardianship
Christians in India are governed generally by the provisions of the Guardians and Wards Act (Central Act No 8 of 1890). It deals with matters relating to guardianship of minors in respect to their person and property.
Marriage
Christian marriage in India is regulated by the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Christian personal law” is religious law in India. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Christian, personal and religious, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “religious law in India” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5033316. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1872, 2006 and 1890.
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This entry incorporates text from “Christian personal law” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.