Although the media is constantly exaggerating the divorce number of India, in reality, the divorce rate in India is the lowest in the world. The divorce rate of India is even lower than its neighboring countries.

The rate of divorce is very low in India compared to Western countries. Belgium has the highest divorce rate in the world at a staggering 70% whereas the divorce rate in the USA is 53%. The rate of divorce in Europe is over 60%. The divorce rate in India is still below 8%, according to Business Insider.

I have summed up results of many anthropological and psychological reasons and listed main reasons for divorces :

Infidelity

Lack of money

Incompatibility

Drug/alcohol addiction

Physical/mental abuse

Constant arguing over everything

Losing respect for one another

The low divorce rate in India is not always attributed to happy marriages.

The low divorce rate attributes to the social pressure and partners are usually shamed for going through the divorce process against the rules and parents. In most of the cases, marriages are arranged by families, not by individuals.

A marriage collapses not because of a single reason but because of a combination of multiple reasons. Infidelity and bad economy both play a vital role in the termination of a marriage.

I would add another important ” incompatibility” When one or both partners in marriage think. “We are just different,” We have to grow separately. We are not meant for one another. We don’t simply match. I cannot take any more. We got to end the relationship.” When a serious incompatibility arises in a marriage, that marriage has little chance to survive.

In India, it is traditionally only men who decide about divorce. Women in very seldom want divorce.

Men can almost freely maintain their extramarital affairs, they don’t need to worry much how their wives feel about their behavior. When men can enjoy all these, in marriage, there is no reason for them to divorce. Why to bother with unnecessary complications many divorce related legal issues.

Unlike women in Western countries, Indian women don’t have sexual freedom. Indian women are not allowed to express freely whether they physically satisfied. Wives may have higher physical desire than their husbands. But they are forced to supress their desires. In western countries, women complain if they are not satisfied in intercourses.

Indian wives are obliged to live in their marriage lives even they don’t get physical pleasure

The lack of physical satisfaction is not the only one reasons for divorces. But it triggers other factors. A couple is, for example, is struggling with financial troubles and it is straining their relationship. If they are not happy in making love, that can accelerate divorces.

A marriage can not survive with a cocktail of financial problems and sexual dissatisfaction.

BBC reports, that some Indian women who left their husbands because husbands were not able to satisfy them were leveled as “bad women” and adultery

As I mentioned earlier that s research have identified infidelity as one of the main reason for divorces. The increasing number of modern Indian men do not even consider adultery as a sin or immoral.

Men feel proud of their infidelity. They gossip proudly how many women they have made love with apart from their wives. This attitude has influenced by Yolo effect which means we have only one life and we have extract maximum pleasures out of it.

In western countries, an infidelity costs a marriage. But it does no in India. Even wives find out that husbands are cheating, they still stay in marriage.

A divorced life of a woman is worse than staying with an unfaithful husband.

Women in India is still financially dependant on their husbands.

Apart from India the proportion of women who work worldwide is 50% But in India, it has declined from 35% in 2005 to 26% today, according to data ofThe Economist. India is the only country that has experienced such a steep decline.

In rural area of India the majority women are unemployed. On the top of that women do not have the equal right to collective wealth in case of divorce. TrustLaw, a news service run by Thomson Reuters, has ranked India as the worst G20 country in which to be a woman.

The social pressure has caused women very vulnerable. Women, therefore, do not dare divorce even marriages do not work for them. Women in India get the blame for anything that is not functioning well in conjugal life.

If a woman from a middle-class family is divorced and live in a small town in India and belong to a middle-class family, the life will be unbearable.

Even for educated and successful women it not easy to come out from a nonfunctioning marriage. Parents and families advise only women to adjust and compromise with husbands. If a woman is divorced, it is a tragic incident as if her life is over.

She can hardly live alone without being disturbed and harassed by neighbors. Everybody looks at her when goes to a restaurant or biography alone. For men, it is easy to walk from marriage.

If there are children involved, then it almost impossible for women to live a divorced life. The fact that Indian women do not divorce does not mean that they are happily married. They do not have other option than to stay in marriage.