What is a “keep”? Dictionaries say that it is, among other things, the strongest or central tower of a castle. But the Supreme Court seems to have a different, less complimentary, idea. For the court, it is necessarily of female gender, and cannot be paid maintenance. Neither feature is complimentary. No doubt a man, who earns nothing or less than a female partner with whom he has been sharing house — and a sexual relationship — “for a significant period”, is not a “keep”. For men, in the nature of things, or as a matter of perception, cannot be “keeps”. It is quite possible that they are never strong enough to be the central tower of the castle, but that does not seem to feature in the court’s guidelines regarding which women in live-in relationships can claim maintenance after break-up. The additional solicitor general articulated the process of the court’s addition to vocabulary: “keep” is the simple translation of an ugly Hindi word. And the court provided its own gloss — by suggesting “concubine” as substitute for “keep”.

There can be no doubt of the judiciary’s encouraging intention of forging ahead with the times by giving live-in partners the benefit of the protection from domestic violence law. Only the pull of deep-seated notions about women, sex and submission is sometimes almost visible. Given the suggested parameters of a relationship by virtue of which a woman can claim maintenance, a man might be in trouble if he ‘keeps’ what was once known as a harem and goes around with a different partner on different occasions or in different social circles as if each were his wife. And when a man does pay maintenance, is the ‘maintained’ woman a “keep”? If not, that can only be because the sex is missing. With weekends and one-night stands in the court’s remarks, sex seems as undesirable as “keep”. Strange that sex is the first thing expected of a marriage.