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An uncle of mine married a lady while they were both finishing up their engineering PhDs.
She was chronically depressed, and had even been started by my (gyno) parents on SSRIs for postpartum depression. When their kid was about 6 months old, she was alone at home and hanged herself. No note, it was a spur of the moment decision while their daughter slept next door.
I have absolutely no reason to think my uncle or his immediate family had anything to do with it. They were a happy couple, even while grappling with her mental health issues. As you've mentioned, the death of a wife within 7 years of marriage automatically warrants investigation*, and in this case, her side of the family were disgruntled and lodged charges, accusing him of instigating her suicide, while also asking for the custody of his daughter.
The legal system here is automatically, and intentionally, biased against men in such affairs. He was imprisoned while standing trial, a protracted affair, and a ruinous one for someone who had just started their own company and acquired a few sizable contracts. It took about a year for the charges to be dismissed and for him to see the light of day, but by then he was a broken man, and half a decade of work he'd put his blood and sweat into was gone with nothing to show for it.
This was all despite literally no evidence beyond the unfounded claims made by his in-laws, while he was able to show evidence of his wife's struggle with depression and get her doctors (including psychiatrists not in the family she was referred to) to testify.
Last time I saw him, he told me to:
A) Never get married B) Get out of this country while I still could
I'm not inclined to follow the first bit of advice, it was an unfortunate accident but he still had his life ruined because he was a man, and men are never above suspicion. The latter? You know where I am.
*A perennial headache when I was an intern at a government hospital. You had women dying shortly after childbirth, or because they got run over by a car, and yet it was automatically a case with medicolegal implications and a dozen times the paperwork for my sorry ass to handle.
I am very sorry to hear about that, losing your aunt and then seeing your uncle going through this is harsh. I hope he is doing better now.
Most here would not believe how backwards and bad laws and the entire judicial process can be for a man. India is a very low trust society, everything is broken.
Correct on the second count at least, you deserve better. I disagree with the first, I want to have kids, and I hope I can have biological kids of my own, having them out of wedlock is not ideal. I do get his point, my family has been involved in court cases that are laughably false for the past 6 decades if not more, people who go through the process suffer immensely, and the charges against him were severe too.
You did the right thing man, I will probably follow suit too.
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