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1. Many unmarried men think that there is a strong possibility that after marriage they along with their family members will face false dowry demand, 498a, maintenance and other cases filed by the wife and their golden years will be spoiled in attending court dates. They also think that they will be pressurised to pay heavy financial price for settlement of their wife’s permanent alimony/maintenance claims and they have to either exhaust their parents hard earned money or take a loan from a bank and pay repay the debt in future.
2. To avoid such situation many young men cleverly start to live with a woman in a live-in relationship, thinking that they are not liable to pay any maintenance to their partner, if they part ways and their family will also be spared from facing false criminal cases.
3. Under the Indian law, the women residing with a man has two options to claim maintenance from her partner i.e
   1. She may claim that she is your wife and she must be paid maintenance. The man may claim that he is already married, the women has not taken divorce, the marriage ceremony did not take place as mandated by the law and they are not married. The court looks at the welfare of the lady and says that due to some technical difficulties you may not be married, but if you live together as husband wife and portray to the society to be husband and wife then the technical issue will not come into play and the women will be granted maintenance. In cases where man and women are established to be living together as a couple, it is presumed by the court until contrary is proved, that such couple were residing together in a valid marriage.
   2. The women may claim maintenance under the provisions of Protection of women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 i.e.
   3. The definitions of “aggrieved person,” “domestic relationship,” “respondent,” and “shared household,” as stated in Sections 2(a), 2(f), 2(q), and 2(s) of the Protection of women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, may be helpful in examining the aforementioned difficulties. They read as follows:
   4. Definitions. – In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires –
      1. “aggrieved person” means any woman who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent and who alleges to have been subjected to any act of domestic violence by the respondent;
      2. “domestic relationship” means a relationship between two persons who live or have, at any point of time, lived together in a shared household, when they are related by consanguinity, marriage, or through a relationship in the nature of marriage, adoption or are family members living together as a joint family;
      3. “respondent” means any adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person and against whom the aggrieved person has sought any relief under this Act:
      4. “shared household” means a household where the person aggrieved lives or at any stage has lived in a domestic relationship either singly or along with the respondent and includes such a house hold whether owned or tenanted either jointly by the aggrieved person and the respondent, or owned or tenanted by either of them in respect of which either the aggrieved person or the respondent or both jointly or singly have any right, title, interest or equity and includes such a household which may belong to the joint family of which the respondent is a member, irrespective of whether the respondent or the aggrieved person has any right, title or interest in the shared household;
4. Children born out of a live in relationship are legitimate and they have right over the self-acquired property of their father, however they have no right in the coparcenary property in a Hindu undivided family.

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