Byline: Prakash. Behere, T. Sathyanarayana Rao, Kiran. Verma consists of the rules and regulation which define the rights, duties and privileges of the husband and wife. – Georgea Lundberg Marriage is a social union or legal contract between a male and a female having intimate interpersonal relationships. It has been the greatest and most important of all social institutions in the human society. People marry for many reasons such as legal, social, libidinal, emotional, economic, spiritual, and religious. These might include arranged marriages, family obligations, legal establishment of a nuclear family unit, legal protection of children, and public declaration of commitment. The relationship between marriage and mental illness is very complicated and this issue commonly arises in psychotic illnesses. Psychosis is usually diagnosed at late adolescent and early adulthood. Being a disease of the age at which decision of marriage is taken, the question of whether to marry or not and whether marriage will lead to improvement or deterioration in psychoses is equally faced by patients, their family members, and treating psychiatrists. Mental disorders and problems in marriage are closely linked though there is a controversy about the sequence. Peculiarities of Marriage in India In India, marriage is a social institution of extreme importance. It is much more than a variety of close personal affiliation uniting two partners and is based on the following foundations... [sup][1] most often it is not a free personal choice but is an arranged relation between two families; the maturity of the partner is not an essential requirement for marriage, and marriage encompasses a heterosexual relationship. In Indian marriage, the husband is considered the head and principle earner of the family; sexual fidelity and monogamy of both husband and wife are represented as marital ideals. Society exerts great pressure on both sexes to marry; mostly people marry without thinking about their personal choice of getting or not getting married. In the presence of mental illness, if marriage is done under pressure, it may lead to deterioration of mental condition. Situation of Mentally Ill Females In India, marriages are usually arranged by parents and are influenced by number of factors such as astrological compatibility, caste regulation, geographic proximity, and expectations of dowry. Female psychotic patients have multifold psycho-socio-economic problems than males because in an Indian setting, male dominates and he is the deciding person for selection of partner. Female patient undergoes tremendous stress in getting married, and if she is having pre-existing mental illness, then the situation worsens. Almost all females face many of the following problems in getting married and sustaining married life. Firstly, at the time of proposal, when a girl is shown to the male partner, it is a stress due to the uncertainty of fixing up of marriage. Secondly, the question of dowry hampers and causes stress. Thirdly, after marriage, she has to leave her parents' house where she has spent 18-20 years of her life. Fourthly, she goes to a new house where she has to cope up with new family members of different temperaments. Fifthly, if she is on drugs for maintenance of improvement from psychoses, she has to face difficulties such as her in-laws may ask for the reason of taking drugs and she may stop taking because of impending risk of questioning and may lead to relapse. Sixthly, she has to undergo first sexual experience which may be traumatic to her. Seventhly comes pregnancy, which itself is a stress (wanted or unwanted). Eighthly, she undergoes the stress of having a male or female baby because male babies are socially much more accepted and preferred over female babies. And finally, child birth. Because of the above-mentioned stressors, female psychotic patients may have more episodes of exacerbation of symptoms or relapse of psychotic illness. …