Marriage in parts of western Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh can happen without negotiation. Occasionally, it is imposed at gunpoint.
The practice, termed as Pakadwa Vivah, or “groom kidnapping,” involves abducting eligible bachelors and forcing them into marriage ceremonies. Although it sounds shocking, this phenomenon has been around for decades. And it happens in places where there are social pressures, dowry economics and weak enforcement.

The Pakadwa Vivah is particularly shocking, not just for the violence involved, but because it has features of market prices, intermediaries, and calculated decisions.

The Economics Behind the Crime

The dowry system in India forms the crux of Pakadwa Vivah, despite its illegality.
In many of the districts of Bihar and eastern UP, grooms with “high-value” status, such as government employees, engineers, doctors and teachers, demand dowries of ₹20 lakh to over ₹1 crore. Incomes of middle- and low- low-class families cannot afford this. The only legal means are selling land, taking loans or falling into lifelong debt.

Pakadwa Vivah surfaces as an inhumane alternative.
Families are opting for local criminal gangs at a fraction of the dowry to harm newlywed women. According to reports, kidnapping a groom will set you back by ₹2 lakh to ₹5 lakh. This price tag – in cold economic terms – means it is “cheaper” than dowry.
It is not only desperation. It is a yardstick.

How Families Hire Gangs to Find Husbands

It usually begins without noise. Families secretly engage the services of intermediaries. Intermediaries are usually local strongmen, criminals, or those politically connected. Apart from that, intermediaries maintain networks to keep track of all eligible bachelors.

Coaching centres, government job lists, exam results, and social media profiles are being scoured. The salary and job security, caste matching, and family background determine a groom’s value.

The trap is set once identified.
The groom is usually tempted by a trusted person, such as a distant relative, a former classmate, or a neighbour. He is invited to a wedding, a job interview, or a casual meet-up. From that location, he is kidnapped and taken to a safe spot, where he is tortured until he agrees.
By the time he knows what is going on, the wedding rituals have already begun.

A Wedding Under Duress

The forced wedding itself is a horrifying contradiction.
Marriage rituals, meant to symbolise consent and union, unfold under threat. Viral videos circulating from these regions show grooms crying, pleading, or visibly shaking while armed relatives force them to sit through ceremonies.

In some clips, grooms are beaten until they apply sindoor to the bride’s forehead. Guns are visible. Resistance is futile.
The ceremony is completed quickly. Photographs are taken. Witnesses are arranged.
Legally and socially, the marriage now “exists.”

Why Many Grooms Stay

It is what comes next that baffles outsiders most.
Numerous grooms who are kidnapped don’t manage to escape or file any cases. They chose to remain in marriage.

This is where social pressure takes over from violence.
A forced wedding has consequences for brides even 10 years later. Families use this reality as a weapon. Grooms are informed that abandoning the woman will “ruin her life.” They are also reminded that it is the woman who will be blamed by society, and not the men who kidnapped him.

With time, one starts to feel guilty and resigned to their fate, or becomes volatile to survive. At times, an emotional attachment may form. In others, it becomes a commercial relationship.

This is what sociologists call a mixture of social coercion and psychological adjustment, which resembles Stockholm syndrome. Marriage is stable not because of choice, but because it is stronger to endure it than to escape it.

The Legal Blind Spot and a Turning Point

For a long time, Pakadwa Vivah flourished due to legal ambiguity and social silence. Police tended to dismiss such cases as 'family matters'. Grooms were discouraged from complaining. All were dread revenge.
In November 2023, the Patna High Court brought significant change with its ruling.

According to the court, even if rituals have occurred, marriages conducted under force, threat, or coercion are void. It further made it clear that consent is important, and ceremonies performed under duress are void.

For the first time, kidnapped grooms are given a clear legal exit.
But the ruling only resolves part of the issue. Although the legislation may render marriages invalid, it does not instantaneously erase social pressure, village politics, or violent intimidation.

A Symptom, Not an Anomaly

Pakadwa Vivah is presented as a strange rural crime. However, it has been better understood as a symptom of deeper failures - unchecked dowry demands, rigid marriage markets, unemployment pressures and monetary social status.

Until certain grooms are viewed as assets, and daughters as liabilities, the market will adapt in cruel ways.
It’s no accident that there is a ‘groom kidnapping economy’. Inequality gets desperate, and the consequence is inevitable.

Pakadwa Vivah is not just about kidnapped men. It is about a society where marriage has become a transaction, consent has become negotiable, and violence has become normalised.

The 2023 legal shift offers hope, but real change will require dismantling the dowry economy and confronting the social structures that make such crimes possible.
Until then, the market for kidnapped grooms will continue to operate in the shadows.

Reference:

• The Hindu – “Pakadwa Vivah and the economics of dowry in Bihar”
• Indian Express – Reports on groom kidnapping cases in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh

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