Make HIV Tests Compulsory Before A Wedding

We check horoscopes. We check family background. We check whether the boy has a 'government job' or the girl 'knows how to cook'.
Somewhere in this elaborate audit, nobody thought to ask: Hey, are you both healthy?

So a priest went viral this week. Not for a miracle, not for a fiery sermon on sin.

For saying couples should get an HIV test before marriage.

The outrage. The pearl-clutching. WhatsApp uncles calling it 'inappropriate'. Be it anything but I call it common sense wearing a cassock.

Here's the thing about marriage. Two people who've known each other for maybe a few months, sometimes a few dinners, are about to sign up for a lifetime contract. And we've built an entire industry around checking everything except the one thing that actually matters.

The Importance of Health Checks

We check horoscopes. We check family background. We check whether the boy has a 'government job' or the girl 'knows how to cook'.

Somewhere in this elaborate audit, nobody thought to ask: Hey, are you both healthy?

I've seen it happen too many times. Someone hides a health issue before the wedding. Depression. Thyroid. Something physical.

It comes out later, and it comes out badly. Usually ends in a divorce. Sad, but survivable. Both people walk away and get on with their lives.

HIV doesn't work that way. If it comes out later, it doesn't end in paperwork at the family court.

It ends with one partner who did absolutely nothing wrong paying for a decision they never got to make.

A Call for Compulsory Testing

So here's my honestly unpopular opinion: Make it compulsory. Not just in churches, everywhere. Across India.

You want a marriage certificate, you produce an HIV test report first. That's it. No test, no certificate. Simple as a driving license.

And before anyone panics, I'm not saying positive means no wedding. That decision stays exactly where it belongs, with the two people getting married.

All I'm saying is they should know. Both of them. Before, not after.

Two strangers deserve to know exactly what they're walking into

Now here's where it gets genuinely funny.

The Catholic Church already makes couples sit through a marriage preparation course before the wedding. Compulsory. No course, no wedding.

And who's teaching this course? A priest. A man who has taken a vow of celibacy, never been married a day in his life, is sitting there explaining the intricacies of married life and, yes, sex, to a room full of nervous couples.

If the Church can insist on that, and somehow keep a straight face doing it, why can't the same Church insist on something far less awkward and far more useful: A medical report?

One is a man with zero personal experience explaining intimacy theory. The other is a piece of paper that could save a marriage, or a life.

I already know what's coming. I'll get called insensitive. I'll get called alarmist. Somebody will accuse me of moral policing.

But sometimes the truth doesn't care if you're comfortable with it.

Two strangers deserve to know exactly what they're walking into.

That's not judgment. That's just honesty, the kind we owe the people we're about to spend our lives with.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff