Metaverse marriage

The Technology Craze has hit a new ceiling in the form of “Metaverse” which is an attempt to create a “Digital Game” and give it “Legal approval”.

In pursuance of this craze, it has been reported that the first meta verse wedding has taken place in India when one Mr Abhijeet Goel, a tech entrepreneur married Dr Sansriti, a dentist. Abhijeet is located in Bhopal.  The wedding is reported to have taken place on Youg Metaverse, a made in India metaverse platform. The wedding was held on 5th February 2022 between 8.00 pm and 9.00 pm. The digital avatars of the couple appeared to have participated in the wedding process.

The following link provides more information about the way the metaverse wedding took place.

Link: Article in Rediff.com

You can see parts of the wedding videos here.

It appears that the wedding was hosted as a 3D platform and probably we should treat it as a version of the Meta Verse similar to the secondlife.com, as compared to the Meta Verse instances which may require a special VR goggles to participate.

500 registered participants attended the wedding set in a beach environment.

From the sketchy reports available at present, it appears that the wedding was held in the physical space in front of limited family members at a proper muhurtham. Subsequently it appears that the marriage game has been hosted on the Yug Metaverse platform where the registered participants were able to create their own avatars and interact with each other.

It was therefore like a webcasting of the reception to which you could attend virtually. The couple were also present in their “Virtual Avatar” to  receive the greetings.

Naavi had discussed the implications of “Cyber Marriage” way back in 2005.

The article “Should Cyber Marriages be Banned”

 was published on May 1, 2005 discussing the legal implications of Cyber Marriages. This article was prompted at that time by a Cyber Crime complaint in Chennai. One person had filed a complaint with the Police that he was married to a lady through Internet and the family of the girl was preventing the girl to move to the bride’s home. The marriage was claimed to have been consummated in a Chat room”.

At that time it was pointed out that if a marriage can be consummated by a “Contract”, it is possible to consummate such marriages and it was not desirable. Hindu marriage however is not a contract marriage and requires “Saptapadi” as an essential part of the marriage though “Tying the Mangala Sutra” or “Opening of the Antarpata” is considered as also specific events during the marriage to determine the completion of marriage.

Considering the possibility of “Chat room “conversations being treated as “Marriages” and girls being subject to harassment, it was suggested that a specific amendment could be made to Section 1(4) of ITA 2000 to place “Contract Marriage” outside the scope of recognition under ITA 2000.

P.S: I have suggested the same kind of amendment to Section 1(4) to de-recognize Crypto currencies as valid electronic documents. This would be the simplest way of banning Crypto Currencies. (See the article: Regulate Bitcoins through ITA 2000 notifications under Section 1(4) and 69/69A/69B)

The Abhijeet marriage is not really a “Cyber Marriage” and hence there should be no legal issue about the validity of the marriage.

However, in future, some other persons may be tempted to use a pure Meta Verse marriage by two digital avatars present in different places tying a virtual Mangala sutra and claiming marriage.

It is found that UTAH has an official online wedding scheme .

The UTAH online wedding requires email request to be sent to the registrar with identity documents and selfies with a payment of a license fee of US $145 (for international couples and $ 70 for local couples).

We are aware that there have been several instances of Cyber Crimes being committed on secondlife.com like platforms where the digital avatar commits a crime against another digital avatar or the platform owner and the matter has been referred to the physical Courts for resolution.

(Please note that the website zone-h.org continues to be blocked by Meity for reasons that has been discussed in detail in the past on this website. It is time MeitY reviews this decision and removes the block. Even the Supreme Court is at fault in causing this blocking of Zone-h.org)

The Virtual marriages including Meta Verse marriages as well as UTAH online marriages tomorrow come up in family courts for divorce and settlements. Then the Courts will be scrambling for identifying the legal basis for marriage, divorce and property related issues.

It is therefore necessary for us to make necessary laws to regulate the Meta Verse marriages soon to avoid problems in future.

Naavi

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