Women’s Right to Residence in Live-In Relationships: Interpreting the Shared Household Under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005

The legal protection of women who cohabit outside marriage presents a difficult question at the intersection of domestic-violence law, property law and constitutional liberty. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (PWDVA) deliberately extends the concept of domestic relationship beyond marriage, but the protection available to a woman in a live-in relationship remains conditional upon the relationship qualifying as a “relationship in the nature of marriage” and upon the residence satisfying the statutory conception of a “shared household”. This article revisits that structure through a doctrinal analysis of Sections 2(a), 2(f), 2(s), 3, 17, 19, 20 and 22 of the PWDVA and the principal Supreme Court decisions from Badri Prasad and Lata Singh to D. Velusamy, Indra Sarma, Satish Chander Ahuja and Prabha Tyagi. It argues that the central problem is not simply whether live-in relationships are legally recognised, but how the law should allocate the evidentiary and residential consequences of relationship status.
The article identifies a gap in existing discussion: the jurisprudence is often analysed either through the “relationship in the nature of marriage” test or through the “shared household” doctrine, while their interaction and the consequences of that interaction for housing security receive comparatively less systematic treatment. To address that gap, the article develops a relationship–residence framework that separates three questions: whether a qualifying domestic relationship exists, whether the premises constitute a shared household, and what form of residence relief is proportionate to the competing rights of the respondent and third-party owners. The analysis also engages with the limits of judicial protection, including the caution in Indra Sarma, and compares the Indian approach with developments in South Africa and Ireland. It concludes that the PWDVA should be interpreted as a protective remedial statute without converting residence protection into an ownership claim. A structured, fact-sensitive approach can protect women from homelessness while preserving legitimate property interests and reducing uncertainty in cases involving non-marital cohabitation.

Live-in relationships; shared household; right to residence; Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005; relationship in the nature of marriage; housing security; gender justice; constitutional liberty.

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