When Saira Decosta, a consultant and her boyfriend Ashok Das, a call-centre executive based in Bhubaneswar, decided to marry, the couple first searched even before surprising to their parents. They laid out their individual investments, property inheritances and anticipated in the distant and the joint finances they were set to embark on. For they reasoned if marriage ever fell part, they would know what was at financial stake.

The couple represents a trend of 'Pre-nuptial agreements' or pre-nups that could redefine the laws of marriages in the not so-distant future, as they are on the rise among affluent urban Indian couples. It is a trend that has been borrowed from the west where celebrity couples and even others sign on the dotted line, dividing their finances and assets, well before they go ahead with wed-lock.

But legal experts caution that agreements of the kind would have little bearing in an Indian courts. Says Janmejaya Das, advocate Orissa High Court, Bhubaneswar, "Any agreement opposed to public policy is not tenable. A pre-nup cannot be executed in a court of law. It is the fedral laws in the west which provide for such an agreement, our Hindu Marriage Act and Christian Marrige Act do not sanction this. It can be at best consider as an memorandum of understanding between parties".