Single after marriage: Women outnumber men 3:1

There are three times as many women as men who are currently single after having been in wedlock. This skew is not just because of the much greater number of women among those widowed. Over 3.2 million of those separated or divorced are women, compared to 1.6 million separated or di vorced men. Both among those separated and among the divorcees, there are twice as many women as men. This is likely to be because it is much easier for men to remarry than for women to do so in a patriarchal society.

These trends are revealed in the 2011 census data, which has given separate data for the first time on the population that is divorced and separated. Earlier, the two categories would be combined.

This trend holds not just at the all-India level, but across most states as well.There are, however, some states where the proportion of separated and divorced men is close to or even slightly more than that of women. These include Kerala, Gujarat and states where the proportion of divorced or separated people is extremely low in the population as a whole.

The population of those separated, 3.5 million, is more than double the number of divorced persons which is just over 1.4 million. Of the 46.6 million women who were once married but were living out of wedlock at the time of the census, the bulk (about 93%) were widowed. Divorced and separated women make up just about 7%. However, divorced and separated men make up about 12% of ever-married men who are not married anymore.

Four of the five states with the highest proportion of divorced or separated women in relation to those ever married (ranging from about 7% to 2%) are from the North East--Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim in that order with Kerala at the fifth place. The states with the lowest pro portion ranging from 0.2% to 0.5% are Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand in that order. Mizoram is the only state where the number of divorced men and women outnumber those who are separated.