Culture of Open Marriage & Partner Swapping – Increasing Trend in India

Article 1 of the United Nations Organization guarantees “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”.

Thus, they are free to form and practice any type of culture as long as it does not harm others.

Among several ways of living life, culture of open marriage & partner swapping is globally familiar although not followed by a large part of the population. But this is becoming an increasing trend in one of the oldest civilizations, India.

On 27^th September 2018, the Supreme Court of India decriminalised adultery.

The justified reason has many elements to it. Such as, in illicit relations while men and women are equal partners only men were transgressors in the eyes of the law.

In some cases, either men or women, in India it applies more to women because when they are physically and mentally tortured by their partner, emotionally attracted to someone where they get some support.

But these days open marriage and partner swapping culture has become an illicit habit and abnormal pride in men and specially women in having extra-marital relations with next door man, at work place or online. The peculiar thing is, there are some parents and in-laws are proud that their daughter and daughter-in-law are seductive enough to attract flaunting womanizers.

Men in swapping culture is typical in such families.

Thus, open marriage & partner swapping are personal choices to engage in it or not.

While no one has the right to do moral policing, the culture of open marriage & partner swapping got harmful impacts both in short and long term on other people too.

It is just like passive smokers impacted by active smokers.

Open marriage is a life style concept where both husband and wife have mutual consent that they can have romantic and physical relationship with other men and women while that do not affect their family or children.

On 5^th April 2026, The Economic Times published,

“ According to Gleeden, an extramarital dating app,

Numbers of Indians on this platform has crossed 4 million. A 148 percent surge in women users over the past two years.

On 19^th January 2026 India Today quoted extramarital affairs dating platform Gleeden,

A survey found that 69 per cent of respondents believe social acceptance of open relationships is increasing. This shift is not limited to metropolitan areas, with similar sentiment emerging from smaller cities as well.

In Tier 1 cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata – 68 per cent of respondents said India has become more open-minded towards open relationships.

Tier 2 cities – Jaipur, Ludhiana, Patna, Kochi, Guwahati and Indore – reported slightly higher acceptance overall, with 70 per cent of respondents indicating greater comfort with open relationships.”

While the life style of open marriage is much heavier, partner swapping culture includes both married and unmarried couples who mutually exchange partners for pleasure.

Further,  there is  no accurate  data, quantity or decimal.  But the partner swapping epidemic affects a large part of the society.

In fact, in case of open marriage, a host of male and female never admit that they are in open marriage and act like they are traditional and believer in monogamy.

These hypocrites are the termites, accountable for making a hollow society. Eating out emotions of trust, respect, love, values and social responsibility.

Handicaps of open marriage:

• It is the tremor and frequent fresh shocks of open marriage gradually collapsing the sanctity of the institution of family.
• It creates mistrust.
• Growing up in such a culture the offsprings will have no respect to any relation and social crime will hike and where it will take that cannot be imagined.
• These partners in matrimony are neither silent nor ashamed but arrogant of their capacity of having multiple affairs. That affects relationships other than their partner swapping community.

Open marriage and partner swapping are lineages of same culture and mindset.

This open marriage and partner swapping culture is not only a city culture or blame to put on western culture. It exists in Indian rural areas, in so called rich, literate families, who are in professional positions.

“Wife Swapping” a book written by Journalist Vineeta Yadav.  In this book she mentioned true stories based on her sting operations conducted twenty years ago and all these cases were in Indian villages.

Thus, the book is the proof of wife swapping and social malady which is crime itself:

• Wives used by men as objects and they swap them like sex toys.
• Some women are experienced and addicted to wife swapping and overtake their husbands.

In present time, Partners of swapping in wedlock or out of wedlock, are polluting the society on many levels,

• Using swapping as a bribe to get a job and retain the job.
• At workplace and in the neighbourhood, they form gangs of swinging or mate swapping and do all types of dirty politics, gossiping, gas lighting, character assassination of genuine people and mob lynching, where they get rid of because from police to politics, advocate to judge, in the social environment they have large masses to support each other which make cases futile as “no one killed Jessica (Jessica Lal murder case in 1999)”.

Thus, to curb all such crimes under the shield of liberty of adults to have open marriages and partner swapping, illicit sexual favour needs to be included in the law just like money as a pay off or personal favour to commit or make others to transgress the ethical and legal boundaries to harm others. These men and women are fostering a jungle culture for the future. Therefore, wisdom requires to bring the trend to  tracks of ethics, legitimacy, accountability, decency and penalize where they use open marriage and partner swapping as a tool to hamper others or snatch rights of the deserving.

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