MUMBAI: The Great Indian Wedding is succumbing to the Great Indian Divorce.

Few societies on earth take marriage more seriously than this one. Marriage comes early, sometimes even in youth, and is cemented by illegal dowries. Opulent weddings swallow life savings. So venerated is marriage that when bruised, beaten wives flee to their parents' homes for sanctuary, they are often turned back, implored to make it work.

But now, in courtroom battles across the subcontinent, in cases brought by slum dwellers and outsourcing workers and millionaires alike, Indians are fighting in growing numbers to divorce. And as words like "alimony," "stepchild" and "pre-nup" start to roll off Indian tongues, many observers bemoan a profound metamorphosis of values in a nation trotting toward new affluence.