India, March 9 -- Senior readers may remember film heroes and heroines in the 1950s and 1960s telling their respective parents that they would have a "Court Marriage" if they were not permitted to wed in the pomp of a traditional ceremony.

Court marriage was a ceremony performed by a consenting couple before a designated magistrate under the Special Marriage Act, enacted by Parliament in 1954, to provide a legal framework for individuals to marry regardless of religion, caste, or faith. It enabled interfaith and intercaste couples to marry without converting, as it did not rely on personal religious laws.

All they had to prove was that the man was 21 and the young woman was at least 18, and that neither had a living spouse. They could b...