Twisha Sharma’s death and India’s dangerous obsession with ‘adjusting’ in marriage

Dubai: There is something particularly haunting about the Twisha Sharma case, and it goes beyond the disturbing details now dominating headlines and television debates in India.

Perhaps it stings deeper because the story feels painfully familiar. Beneath the allegations, the investigations, the competing narratives between two grieving families and the relentless social media frenzy lies something many Indian families instinctively recognise. And, it's that of a young woman who enters a marriage, struggles within it, and somewhere along the way is encouraged to hold on a little longer, stay patient, try harder, adjust.

Twisha Sharma had reportedly been married for only five months before she was found dead hanging at her in-laws' home. The fact that her husband is a lawyer and her mother-in-law a retired high court judge has only intensified public fascination with the case, largely because it unsettles the comforting belief that education, status and sophistication somehow protect families from emotional cruelty or unhealthy power dynamics.

As more details continue to emerge like allegations of dowry harassment, reports surrounding an abortion, claims that Twisha felt trapped and the widely circulated footage showing her body being carried away before police arrived, the outrage has only deepened.

The investigation is still unfolding, and the truth will ultimately have to survive legal scrutiny rather than social media speculation. But even through the noise, this case seems to touch something deeper because it feels less like an isolated tragedy and more like a story people have heard in fragments before.

Reading about Twisha Sharma, I found myself thinking less like a journalist following a national story and more like a parent. I kept returning to a question that feels uncomfortable precisely because it is so ordinary: why do so many women still grow up believing that leaving an unhappy marriage is somehow more shameful than remaining inside one?

The culture of “adjustment” in Indian marriages rarely presents itself as oppression. More often, it arrives wrapped in affection, patience and practicality.

Families encourage endurance because they genuinely hope things will improve. Parents worry about impulsive decisions, social judgment and marriages collapsing before they have properly begun. Nobody wants to believe that a daughter who looked radiant at her wedding could feel deeply lonely only months later.

And perhaps that is what makes this conversation so difficult. Most families are not trying to cause harm. Many are simply repeating what they themselves were taught -- that marriage is hard, that compromise is necessary, that difficult beginnings eventually soften with time.

But for someone already struggling, phrases like “things will settle” or “every marriage is difficult initially” can begin to feel less like reassurance and more like quiet dismissal.

There is also something deeply sad about how quickly conversations around women still slide into moral policing. If a woman is ogled at, she is told to dress differently. If she is outspoken, she is told to soften herself. If she has dated before marriage, worked in the public eye or expressed ownership over her own body, her character can suddenly become open for scrutiny.

It is remarkable how quickly a woman’s past can become evidence against her once she enters a marriage.

And while India likes to imagine itself as modern and progressive, many women are still quietly carrying the exhausting burden of proving they are respectable enough, pure enough, accommodating enough.

While the visuals of Twisha Sharma’s grieving parents and shattered relatives have stayed with me long after the headlines faded, so has the uncomfortable feeling that many women will recognise parts of this story far too easily — the pressure to keep trying, to not give up too soon, to preserve a marriage even when something inside it no longer feels right.

And maybe that is the part we need to sit with more honestly.

Because sometimes the most loving thing a family can say is not “adjust a little more.” It is simply: “Come home.”