The Gujarat state assembly passed the Uniform Civil Code Bill on March 25, 2026, enacting a common family law for all religious communities, making it the second state after Uttarakhand did so in February 2024. This article seeks to examine key provisions of Gujarat’s Uniform Civil Code (Gujarat UCC) through the lens of constitutional rights and gender justice.Narrow imagination of familyFamily laws in India are founded upon a heteronormative, monogamous and patriarchal conception of family, shaped largely by British colonial rule in India with Victorian morality as its fulcrum. For a country that wishes to decolonise laws, it is illogical to narrowly conceive of ‘family’ as a husband, wife and their children. This erases the existence of multiple non-heteronormative forms of family and non-biological kinship systems that have historically existed and continue to exist in India, albeit outside the pale of law.These include maitri karaar in Gujarat, nata in Rajasthan, sambandham in Kerala, kareva or chaddar andazi in Haryana, dhuku in Jharkhand, Hijra gharanas, queer relationships, chosen families and polyamory. These are what the Supreme Court terms as “atypical families“. Out of these, Hijra gharanas (consisting of hierarchical “households” among transgender persons) have received limited legal recognition in the context of devolution of property, through judgements such as Illyas (1989, Madhya Pradesh) and Sweety (2016, Himachal Pradesh). However, similar structures of chosen families also exist among some intersex and non-binary communities, which have received no legal recognition at all.In 2022, in the Deepika Singh judgement, the Supreme Court, while deciding on the right to maternity leave for a woman whose husband had two children from a previous marriage, expanded the traditional definition of family, to include domestic, unmarried partnerships and queer relationships. It stated that the “black letter of the law must not be relied upon to disadvantage families which are different from traditional ones.” In X vs. The Principal Secretary (2022), the Supreme Court emphatically stated that atypical manifestations of the family unit are equally deserving of protection under law.In 2025, in M.A. vs. Superintendent of Police, the Madras High Court drew upon these Supreme Court judgements, and further expanded the legal understanding of family in the context of a habeas corpus petition that was filed by a woman whose same-sex partner was allegedly confined by her biological family. It stated that the legal definition of “family” should not be limited to marriage, blood relations, or having children, and that marriage is not the only way to form a family. While family laws are rooted in ‘assigned families’ based on biological or marital ties, the court acknowledged the concept of ‘chosen families’ where a person creates family-like bonds with persons of their choice, based on mutual love, care and support.This is especially relevant for transgender and queer persons whose biological families may reject them, but it might also extend to others, such as individuals who remain single by choice. The fact that the court drew upon the fundamental right to life, guaranteed by Article 21 of the constitution, makes a powerful case for expansion of the definition of ‘family.’The Gujarat UCC, much like its predecessor, the Uttarakhand UCC, took no cognisance of these judgements that have repeatedly expanded the definition of ‘family.’ While the judicial pronouncements attempt to take a step forward in recognising diverse forms of family, and there exist varied reasons why the law should recognise chosen families, the Gujarat UCC, turns the clock back to the orthodox and restrictive socio-legal forms of marriage and family. This invisibilises all other forms, excluding persons within them from legal protection within family laws. A broader and more radical imagination of the legal definition of ‘family’ could have been construed, based on interdependence (physical / emotional / financial) and mutual caregiving, delinking it from sexual and gender identities, romance, marriage and sex.Exclusion of gender diverse persons’ rights in marriageFlowing from the narrow conception of family, all family laws speak in gender binaries – man, woman, husband, wife, bridegroom, bride…. Persons who identify themselves beyond such gender binaries are deprived of any semblance of rights within family laws. In 2019, the Madras High Court’s Madurai Bench, through a landmark judgement, interpreted the term ‘bride’ in the Hindu Marriage Act to include not only a cis woman but also a trans woman. This judgement was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2023, through which it became applicable to the entire country.Since judgements such as Naz Foundation, NALSA and Navtej Singh Johar emphasised the importance of self-determination of gender identity, when these were read with the Madras High Court judgement, it was clear that a self-identified trans woman, would be considered a ‘bride’ within the HMA.However, the passing of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, on March 25 and 26 by the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively, mandates a medical board’s certification of transness. This amendment has struck a death knell to the trend of judgements discussed above, which were founded on fundamental rights to dignity, privacy and bodily autonomy, and relied upon the Yogyakarta Principles. In the changed legal landscape, it is unclear if the existing right of transgender persons to marry a cis partner under the Hindu Marriage Act would be constricted in future. The Gujarat UCC gives us no indications of this complex terrain.While the Supriyo judgement of the Supreme Court, delivered in 2023, failed to legalise same-sex marriages and denied the right to marry to LGBTQIA+ communities, it did not preclude the Parliament or state legislatures to recognise same-sex marriages; in fact, the judgement reiterated that the power to legislate on same-sex marriages rested with them.A Queer Pride Parade on International Transgender Day of Visibility, in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. Photo: PTI.In 2025, the Madras High Court met with the woman who was detained by her family, and confirmed that she was in a consensual same-sex relationship, and set her free by allowing the habeas corpus petition. It noted that though the Supriyo judgement stated that LGBTQIA+ persons did not have a fundamental right to marry, based on the Deepika Singh judgement, same-sex couples had the right to form families.The right to form families would remain hollow unless it has corresponding rights of same-sex couples that are spelt out within family laws. This falls within the mandate of state legislatures. Since the Gujarat UCC was enacted subsequent to these judgements, this was an opportune moment for it to recognise same-sex relationships and spell out their rights and responsibilities within family laws, as a definitive step towards inclusivity and equal treatment of persons with varied sexual identities.In December 2005, the South African constitutional court observed that “The common law definition of marriage is declared to be inconsistent with the constitution and invalid to the extent that it does not permit same-sex couples to enjoy the status and the benefits coupled with responsibilities it accords to heterosexual couples.” In 2023, the Supreme Court of Nepal directed registration of same-sex marriages. Taking a leaf from such judgements would have only added a feather on the Gujarat legislature’s cap.Registration of marriages, divorces and decrees of nullityThe Gujarat UCC lays down conditions for contracting a marriage in Section 4. These include the criteria of monogamy, mental capacity, age requirements (minimum age of 21 for men and 18 for women), and prohibited relationships – these are similar to those found in current legislations such as The Special Marriage Act 1954, The Hindu Marriage Act 1955 and The Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872. The Law Commission of India, in its 205th report (2008) had previously recommended removing the differential age criteria for men and women, and suggested a uniform age of 18 years for both parties. This has been ignored by the Gujarat UCC (as well as the Uttarakhand UCC).The Gujarat UCC makes registration of marriages mandatory under Sections 6 and 7, and prescribes the procedure for the same in Section 10. It also requires decrees of divorce and nullity to be registered under Section 9 of the Gujarat UCC, with procedure for registration prescribed in Section 11. Further, it prohibits marriages solemnised / contracted prior to or after commencement of the UCC to be dissolved in any manner except in accordance with the UCC provisions, thereby precluding customary divorces and divorces effected through non-judicial forums (Section 35).A failure to register the marriage will not result in it being considered invalid (as per Section 20) but wilful omission or neglect to deliver the memorandum to the registrar, would entail a penalty of up to Rs 10,000 under Section 17. This penal provision would disproportionately affect new brides, who may have little say in decisions about registration (due to the power differentials between spouses), and yet bear equal consequence for the same.A joint reading of Sections 6, 7 and 10 indicates three contexts and prescribes specific procedures for registration of the marriage for each:Where the marriage was solemnised/contracted within Gujarat prior to commencement of UCC and was registered under the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act (GRMA) 2006;Where the marriage was solemnised/contracted prior to commencement of GRMA where at least one party to the marriage was a resident of Gujarat at that time; andWhere the marriage was solemnised/contracted within Gujarat after the commencement of UCC.A marriage that is solemnised and registered under the GRMA will be deemed to be registered under the UCC as per the proviso to Section 7. These provisions show an interplay between provisions of the GRMA with provisions of the Gujarat UCC, and illustrate that the Gujarat UCC will not be a standalone family law governing all matrimonial rights of all residents of Gujarat.A Bill introduced in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly in February 2026 aims to amend provisions of the GRMA dealing with registration of marriages. This includes Section 11 of GRMA by mandating the registrar, before issuing the marriage certificate, to “notify the registration in the public domain (for 30 days) through local newspapers, social media and by registered post to the blood relatives of both the parties or by notification in the public domain through any other form as deemed fit by the state government.”In other words, the amendment aims to make it mandatory for adult persons, who have fulfilled the legal criteria of age for marriage, to seek parental/natal family consent to the registration of their marriage. While this is justified as a protectionary measure for the vulnerable, it essentially deters inter-caste, inter-religious and inter-class choice marriages which parents/natal family may object to.The critique made to the mandatory notice regime under Special Marriage Act (SMA) is applicable here too. It is important to recall that in Safiya Sultana judgement (2021), the Allahabad High Court had held that the SMA requirement of publication of notice and inviting/entertaining objections violates fundamental right to privacy of the couple, and it was “cruel” and “unethical” to make it mandatory. Hence, it can only be read as directory, to be given effect to only on the request of the parties to the intended marriage and not otherwise. The proposed amendment to GRMA is comparable to the notice regime under SMA, and goes a step further.This proposed amendment and its potential violation of constitutional rights have been discussed elsewhere. What makes the legal terrain complex and confusing, is the impact (if any) of this proposed amendment to the GRMA, to the Gujarat UCC. This is more puzzling because Section 10 of the UCC requires parties to submit a memorandum in the “prescribed manner” within sixty days of marriage. However, the prescribed format of the memorandum is not provided in any of the Schedules to the Gujarat UCC. It is unclear if the memorandum, if introduced through Rules to the UCC that are notified in future, will conform to the proposed amendment to GRMA.Mandatory registration of live-in relationshipsLive-in relationships are not only merely disapproved by the natal family; in many instances, the natal family, community leaders and vigilante groups collude to commit to “honour” crimes against the couple. Yet, when a couple chooses to live together without solemnising/contracting a marriage, they exercise their decisional autonomy not to be governed by family laws. Conversely, provisions requiring mandatory registration of live-in relationships and their termination, backed by penal sanctions including fine and imprisonment, impose family laws on them.Such provisions first featured in Sections 378-389 of the Uttarakhand UCC and generated considerable critique – on grounds that it attempted to control young people’s sexuality; that it pits vulnerable young couples against the might of the state; that it erodes sexual autonomy and reinforces state and social control of individuals’ sexual choices; by highlighting concerns over privacy, autonomy and excessive state intervention; and that it is a war against women’s agency.Despite the scathing critique, these provisions have now been replicated in Sections 384-395 of the Gujarat UCC in almost identical language. It has added a provision prescribing penalties for obtaining consent of any person by force, coercion or fraud in a live-in relationship [Section 393(4)], and a provision stating that a major person in a live-in relationship with a minor will be punished under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 [Section 393(6)] .Over the decades, the higher judiciary meticulously built a jurisprudence around an adult person’s fundamental right to personal liberty, privacy and decisional autonomy in intimate relationships. This includes Supreme Court judgements in Lata Singh (2006), Arumugam Seervai (2011), In Re vs. Indian Woman Says Gang-Raped On Orders (2014), Asha Ranjan (2017), Shafin Jahan (2018) and Shakti Vahini (2018). Notably, in the judgement of Khushboo (2010), a three judge Bench of the Supreme Court observed that live-in relationships and pre-marital sex should not be associated with the lens of criminality.The provisions in Uttarakhand UCC attempted to turn the clock back in the name of protecting women and children in such relationships. These have been challenged for their constitutionality through writ petitions filed in the Uttarakhand High Court. At a time when the writ petitions remain pending, the act of replicating them through the Gujarat UCC connotes a brazenness with which it violates established constitutional jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.Failure to exclude restitution of conjugal rightsThe Gujarat UCC has retained restitution of conjugal rights (RCR) – a matrimonial remedy that compels an unwilling spouse to cohabit with their spouse – through Section 26. This remedy has existed in the family law statutes applicable to Hindus, Christians and persons marrying under the Special Marriage Act, and has been extended to Muslims through case law. Much has been written about the history of this matrimonial remedy, its archaic and regressive nature and its disproportionate impact on the wife, thereby making a case for its abolition from family law statutes.In a pivotal moment in 1983, Andhra Pradesh High Court stated that Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, which provides for RCR, is “savage and barbarous” as it denied the woman “a free choice of whether, when and how her body is to become the vehicle for the procreation of another human being” (para 25). It held RCR as unconstitutional. This was overruled subsequently by the Supreme Court in Saroj Rani judgement, where the constitutionality of RCR was upheld on the ground that it facilitated cohabitation. In 2015, a government-established High Level Committee on the Status of Women recommended the deletion of RCR provisions from all family law statutes.In 2017, a nine judge Bench of the Supreme Court stated that right to privacy was a fundamental right under Article 21 (right to life), guaranteed by the constitution, which includes bodily autonomy. The Law Commission of India, in 2018, recommended a repeal of the remedy from the family law statutes, echoing the High Level Committee. In 2021, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court in the case of Ojaswa Pathak, challenging the constitutionality of the remedy of RCR once again, drawing from the right to privacy judgement, which remains pending.In 2022, in X vs. Principal Secretary, the Supreme Court opined that the ambit of reproductive rights is “not restricted to the right of women to have or not to have children. It also includes the constellation of freedoms and entitlements that enable a woman to decide freely on all matters relating to her sexual and reproductive health” and that they include “the right to choose whether and when to have children” (para 96).This is clearly a right that is violated by forced cohabitation of the wife with her husband, through the remedy of RCR. The checkered trajectory highlighted above ought to have motivated the Gujarat legislature to exclude the matrimonial remedy from the UCC, to demonstrate its genuine commitment to women’s equality rights within marriage.Intestate and testamentary successionProvisions related to intestate succession become applicable when no valid will exists for distribution of properties of the deceased. Of the schemes of intestate succession applicable to Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Parsis and persons married under the Special Marriage Act, none have eliminated gender discrimination completely. The Hindu Succession Act (HSA), often assumed to be the model law, has gender discriminatory provisions in its devolution of property too.The Gujarat UCC creates a common scheme of intestate succession applicable to all persons of all religious communities. Its provisions on order of preference and distribution of shares in intestate succession (stated in Section 55 and Schedule 2) largely follow the scheme in HSA, with two exceptions: unlike the HSA, parents are treated equally as Class 1 heirs; further, there is no separate scheme for the properties of deceased men and deceased women. Despite these positive aspects, the Gujarat UCC provisions carry similar gender discriminatory provisions as the HSA in the scheme for Class 2 heirs.For instance, father’s parents are placed in Entry III of Class 2 and hence given preference over mother’s parents who are placed in Entry VI of Class 2. Similarly, father’s siblings are placed in Entry V of Class 2, and are given preference over mother’s siblings who are placed in Entry VII of Class 2.In testamentary succession, except Muslim law, no other family law imposes a limit on the testator (the person making the will) as to the quantum of property that can be willed away. Consequently, Hindus, Christians, Parsis and those married under the Special Marriage Act may legally bequeath their entire property to anyone they wish, leaving their immediate family members with no share at all.Transposed onto a patriarchal society where notions of son-preference and daughter-devaluation are rampant, this can result in willing away the entire property in favour of the son, leaving the daughter with nothing except finances for marriage expenses. In accordance with the Law Commission of India’s recommendation in 2018, the Gujarat UCC could have incorporated a limit on testamentary disposition of property to prevent women members of the immediate family of the deceased from being disinherited.Deafening silences and conspicuous absencesDespite the discussion above on varied issues, the Gujarat UCC is far from being comprehensive. For instance, it is silent on adoptions, so Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956 (for Hindus) and Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 (for all citizens) will continue to be applicable. It is also silent on guardianship laws, so Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956 (for Hindus) and Guardians and Wards Act 1890 (for all citizens) will presumably continue to be applicable. Since Scheduled Tribes have been excluded from the ambit of the UCC, customary laws will be applicable to such communities, where too there exists considerable gender injustice.In the Gujarat UCC, provisions dealing with matrimonial property are conspicuous by their absence, as with most family laws. Only the Goan family laws have a default system of “communion of assets” – a default regime under which both spouses are deemed co-owners of property that each inherited or each or jointly acquired before or during the marital relationship. Though critics have observed that these rights are more in theory than in practice, they provide useful pointers and can be adapted. Scholars have expressed the need for a law on matrimonial property time and again.A genuine effort to safeguard and promote women’s rights could have resulted in making a beginning by incorporating provisions on matrimonial property in the Gujarat UCC.Additionally, Indian family laws fail to explicitly acknowledge the domestic and care work performed by married women although the National Statistics Office’s 2024 Time Use Survey indicates that women continue to shoulder the overwhelming majority of unpaid household and care work. In 2023, the Madras High Court considered a wife’s unpaid domestic labour as her financial contribution towards properties acquired by her husband after marriage in his name. In 2025, the Delhi High Court opined that a homemaker does not “sit idle” and that to disregard her domestic and care work while adjudicating claims of maintenance would be “unrealistic and unjust.” While these are significant judgements, they remain an exception rather than the rule. The Gujarat UCC is a lost opportunity to end the silence and safeguard economic rights of women within marriage and upon its dissolution more comprehensively, while upholding their dignity.ConclusionWith a gap of two years between the Uttarakhand and Gujarat UCCs, one would have hoped that concerns, critiques, ambiguities, gaps in law and the silences in relation to the Uttarakhand UCC, would have been addressed to enact an improved version of a gender-just family law.Since the Indian government is a State Party to the UN Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), standards set by CEDAW are binding in nature. Article 16 of the CEDAW, in particular, mandates States Parties to “take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations.” Such a state obligation applies to all organs of the State, including the Indian Parliament and state legislatures.Recent judgements of the higher judiciary (discussed above) have demonstrated the foregrounding of constitutional rights while interpreting issues pertaining to family law, thereby acting as a counter-majoritarian voice. The Law Commission’s recommendations on key aspects of family law indicate an effort to bridge the gap between the written law and changing social realities through a rights-based perspective. It was incumbent on the Gujarat UCC to take these on board.Seen in this light, the Gujarat UCC pays a lip service to constitutional rights and gender justice.Dr Saumya Uma is a Professor at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, and heads its Centre for Women’s Rights. She teaches, writes and speaks at the intersections of gender, human rights and the law. The opinions expressed in this article are her own.