The Undue Importance of Marriage in India’s Current Surrogacy Legislation

Focusing specifically on the marginalization of “single”, unmarried women in the Indian Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021, we highlight the socio-cultural biases that centre on the notion of marriage in the legislation. Drawing on insights from legislative mobilization (Kothari 2024) post 2021, we suggest that the current surrogacy legislation in India only selectively empowers certain women’s reproductive autonomy. This defies the constitutional “right to family” of especially single women and discriminates against their equality of citizenship. The barriers presented by patriarchal concepts which frame the contexts in which the law is enacted must be recognized to remove the intentional and unintentional gender biases through which the law is implemented and experienced. Keywords: surrogacy; marriage; singlism; gender bias; discrimination.