After a visit with her new in-laws the day after her wedding, 26-year-old Taara Ravupoodi left anxious and confused by a question her mother-in-law asked her and her husband.
“After God comes who?” her mother-in-law asked angrily.
“Your spouse,” she responded. Yet her new mother-in-law kept repeating the question until she heard the only acceptable answer from her son: “Parents.”
Ravupoodi, an Indian American living in Indianapolis, married her husband, who immigrated to the US from South India at a young age, more than a year ago. Conflicts with family began on her wedding day, when her father-in-law stormed out of the reception because the hired flutist played instrumental music that included upbeat secular songs.
Since then, nearly every tension between the couple has been tied to her in-laws, and they struggle to find the balance between honoring their parents and prioritizing their marriage. Highlighting the sensitivity of this topic in Indian society, Ravupoodi asked to use a pseudonym, as she feared speaking out would hurt her relationship with her in-laws.
Many couples in India and among the Indian diaspora face marital stress due to the strong influence parents have over their children and their children’s marriages. Pastors and counselors trace most marriage problems in India to couples not “leaving and cleaving” from the husband’s family, a reference to the command in Genesis 2:24 that “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
Christian ministries in India are helping couples push back against cultural norms while honoring both their in-laws and their spouses.
Prabhan Chandy Mathew, founder of Urban India Ministries (UIM) in Bengaluru, India, has mentored and ministered to families across India for more than three decades. He noted that, unlike in the West, where children often move out of their parents’ home after high school, in India most children live with their parents even after they get married.
Many Indian parents are deeply invested in their children’s lives—paying for their education and amassing property and wealth for them—and therefore have high expectations of their children. These expectations continue beyond marriage and hinder any attempts at biblical leaving and cleaving, Mathew said.
Mathew added that India’s philosophical understanding of the hierarchy of priorities, “Matha, Pitha, Guru, Daivam” (Mother, Father, Teacher, God), also adds to the problem.
“God is last on that list, and the mother is first,” Mathew said. “And that’s exactly what we see in many Indian Christian homes.” He pointed to popular Indian sayings such as “Your mother has carried you in her womb for nine months, but your wife just came in yesterday.” As a result, “in the Indian context, the biblical ‘leaving’ process becomes more of a ‘grieving’ process, for both children and parents.”
When Ravupoodi’s husband, who had only ever lived with his parents, moved from Chicago to Indianapolis to live with his wife, he felt immense pressure to make sure he didn’t disappoint his parents. Meanwhile, Ravupoodi, who had known her in-laws for several years before marrying her son, noted that her mother-in-law became more possessive of her son after they got married. She’d point out to Ravupoodi how her son was “her everything,” often holding his hand, making it seem like she was competing for his affection.
“She once told me that ‘You might be holding his arm on one side, but I’m always on the other side, holding his arm too,’” Ravupoodi recalled.
Ravupoodi’s husband initially struggled to set boundaries and truly “leave” his parents out of the fear of disobeying them. He also felt indebted to his parents for helping him pay off his college tuition.
When her husband struggled last year to muster up the courage to tell his parents that they’d spend half of their Thanksgiving break with Ravupoodi’s family and half with his family, the couple sought their pastor’s advice.
The American pastor, who had known Ravupoodi’s husband and his family for many years, pointed out that his parents’ expectations of only spending the holiday with them were unfeasible for a married man. He had to be okay with disappointing them. The couple ended up spending three days with Ravupoodi’s family and five days with his family.
Mathew notes that when a couple lives with parents, which is the case for about 70 percent of married couples in India, they aren’t given a chance to become an independent unit.
“The rule over the parental home is still with the parents, and the newlywed wife often does not even have the autonomy to cook a meal for her husband or do things her way,” he said. Even when couples live separately from parents, Mathew says parents continue to meddle remotely by frequently calling to check on the couple, advising on important decisions, and expecting the couple to visit often.
One pastor of an independent church in New Delhi noted that for many Indians, leaving and cleaving is seen as dishonoring parents. (He asked for anonymity as his church and NGO are currently facing persecution.) He’s seen a married man in his church struggle because his parents expected him to buy them a house, fund his siblings’ weddings, and meet all of their financial needs and wants. As a first-generation Christian who’s trying to share the gospel with his family, the parishioner faces immense pressure to provide for his parents while also prioritizing his own marriage.
Churches are becoming more open in addressing these issues in their congregations, Mathew said. “Many pastors are seeing enough marriage breakdowns within their churches and are realizing that it is beyond their ability to help couples in distress. So they’re reaching out to us for solutions.”
Apart from counseling couples, UIM has held annual marriage retreats since 2003 and started a couples and family counselling helpline in 2015, which now operates in six languages.
In 2023, UIM released a nine-session premarital education curriculum that hundreds of Indian churches now use. The Scripture-based lessons present real-life scenarios and ask couples how they would deal with them. The last session is for the couples’ parents, and they are specifically taught to release their children.
The session is not easy, said Nibu Skariah, pastor of an independent church in Bengaluru who has been using UIM’s curriculum in his church for two years now. He says many parents are not comfortable listening to lessons in a formal setting. But he finds that having a few prior informal conversations with the parents to understand their contexts and mindsets is helpful. The sessions have seen some success in his church, and he has been able to guide both parents and children into the idea of separation, including living separately after marriage.
In cases where parents are insistent on the couple staying with them, Skariah advises couples to live separately for at least a few years after getting married before returning to live with the in-laws. Skariah, who himself struggled while living with his family after getting married, said a couple should strengthen their own relationship first so that they can deal with the frictions of joint living.
However, some pastors emphasize that leaving and cleaving does not always equate living apart.
“When the command to leave and cleave was given in Genesis or in later books, it was given to the Israelites living in tents, by family, by clan,” the New Delhi pastor said. “So I’m careful to point out that it’s not really about physically moving out necessarily but about prioritizing one’s marriage.”
Mathew views the separation as similar to cutting an umbilical cord, which becomes vital for both the mother and the child after a point. But he believes that in an Indian context, it is essential to teach that this is foremost an emotional detachment, rather than a physical one. In restricted environments where physical separation is not possible, he advises couples not to force the issue and to move out only when it’s possible to.
The New Delhi pastor said he makes sure to talk openly with his congregants about leaving and cleaving because he believes it’s good for couples and parents to hear the countercultural message over and over again. Apart from one-on-one conversations and premarital counseling, he also tries to incorporate the idea into his Sunday services and wedding sermons. His church also conducts couples’ retreats every few years, where these topics are discussed in detail.
“Over the last few decades, India has changed a lot: There are more nuclear families, more love marriages, more women working outside of the home,” he said. “People are looking for guidance and are eager to hear the message on leaving and cleaving. So I think it’s the right time to be talking about all these issues relating to marriage.”
However, he’s found that due to the negative impression of counseling, or just the cultural shame around sharing personal problems, people often don’t come to a local pastor for any kind of counseling until things have gotten really bad.
Ravupoodi and her husband never sought counsel from Indian American churches in their area because they feel that community is very parent-centric and preaches a narrative that puts parents above everything, including God’s will. However, the couple has benefited from a Christian counselor who’s been teaching them to build healthy boundaries and establish trust and safety in their marriage.
For instance, the counselor advised them to decide beforehand how many hours they would spend with in-laws, what they would do during their time together, what topics they would discuss, and how to handle a conflict should it arise. He also advised Ravupoodi’s husband to speak up when his parents are being disrespectful.
Ravupoodi said her in-laws have at times been upset and resistant toward some of the boundaries. But overall, things have improved, especially between Ravupoodi and her husband.
“A lot of the beliefs in the Indian Christian community are rooted in Hindu traditions, including putting your parents above everything,” Ravupoodi said. “And it’s now up to us, our generation, to break away from those unbiblical generational traditions. So the hard work is for us to do now.”
