FAQs

Single women are among the most vulnerable in India. Single women—widowed, divorced, abandoned, never married—face deep social stigma, economic precarity, and systemic neglect. Despite being a demographic inevitability (almost all married women eventually become widows since women marry men about four years older than them and outlive men by about four and a half years), they remain invisible in policies and social security frameworks.

Single women face an additional level of discrimination, exclusion, and stigma compared to other women. Despite the numbers and inevitability, single women remain socially invisible and economically marginalised. Patriarchal norms define them by male relations, curtailing autonomy and exposing them to stigma, violence, and exploitation. Their needs differ—widows of hate crimes, fisherwomen with missing husbands, women with disabilities, acid attack survivors—but they share exclusion from entitlements and livelihood ecosystems.

At its core, the pursuit of happiness is a universal human right, an inherent aspiration that should transcend societal labels, particularly those related to marital status. No individual, regardless of gender, should ever be coerced into or out of marriage, whether by the subtle pressures of social expectation or the overt force of governmental policy. A woman’s worth, dignity, and access to a fulfilling life must never be contingent upon her relationship with a male partner.

SWAN is founded on the fundamental principle that a woman’s worth, dignity, and access to a fulfilling life—a life with dignity—is her right, and must never be contingent upon her marital status, much less her relationship with a male.

SWAN is to address systemic failures, regressive sociocultural norms, hostility of socioreligious institutions, the inadequate performance of state mechanisms, and to tackle complex intersectional challenges. In line with the principle ‘nothing about us without us’, single women need their own organisation—with their own leadership—to identify their challenges, prioritise them, build their capacity to address them and then execute their plans. That simple need is the raison d’être of SWAN.

Indian society determines the identity of a woman only in relation to her marital status or, at best, in relation to a male. From this perspective, any adult woman who has not been living with and/or dependent on an adult male for over a year, for any reason is a single woman. This broad definition encompasses never-married women, all widowed or divorced women, all women separated from their husbands or partners for a year or more, all women in situations of gender based violence.

The marginalisation experienced by single women is not uniform; it is significantly intensified by the intersection of various social categories such as class, caste, (dis)ability, sexuality, ethnicity, and religion, in addition to age and marital status. This intersectionality means that the stigma faced by a single woman from a marginalised caste, for instance, is far more acute and complex than that faced by a single woman from a privileged background. This pervasive stigma contributes to the ‘invisibility’ of single women and the challenges they face within policy frameworks, public discourse, and even family structures. 

Single women face considerable social restrictions on their autonomy. Despite–and often because of–their capacity, the acceptable agency of the women is constricted. They are disproportionately vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence. Beyond physical threats, single women are subjected to archaic and harmful superstitions, branded as ‘witches’, or excluded from family functions under the pretext of being inauspicious or even harbingers of misfortune.

Being single could be a choice or involuntary due to circumstance. Their needs are profoundly shaped by their community, life stage, geographic region, and religious background. The support system designed for an acid attack survivor must be fundamentally different from that required for a fisherwoman whose husband has been missing for three years, or an Adi Dravidar woman whose husband was killed in a caste atrocity, or a tribal woman whose husband died in the forest. Even among involuntarily single women, the specific trauma, economic precarity, and social ostracization they endure demand highly individualised interventions.

While all single women, including those who choose to be single, require robust support for economic independence and physical safety, certain groups face distinct challenges that demand specialised attention.

The Census of India 2011 recorded over 72 million single women in India. Tamil Nadu has the largest proportion of single women in India. 

Another data point of being single from the Census of India 2011 is the number of women headed households (WHH). The Census recorded 32.7 million WHH (13.17%) of the total 248.8 million households in India.

In Tamil Nadu, 2.9 million (16%) of the 18.4 million households are women headed. Of them, 1.67 million are in rural areas, and 1.3 million are in urban areas. By faith, only for Muslims WHH are more in urban areas (6.08 lakh) than in rural areas (1.67 lakh). The data also reveals 18% WHH among Muslims, 15.82% among Hindus and 8.14% among Christians.

The Sample Registration System (SRS) 2013 reported that 13.1% of Tamil Nadu’s married women and 2.5% of married men live separately. Nationally, 2.5% of the married men and 8.3% of the married women are single. For the population above 10 years of age, 3% of the men and 15.4% of the women are single in Tamil Nadu, compared to the national average of 2.9% for men and 10.1% for women).

Women are increasingly choosing not to marry, or marrying later than the ‘expected’ or ‘normative’ age. The age at which a girl is expected to marry differs from community to community—ranging from pre-teens (sometimes as young as eight or nine years of age) to about 30 years of age. Though the normative median is inching higher, there is still an invisible, but indelible, age by which a woman is expected to be married, failing which she is considered ‘single’ (and her parents deemed to have failed in their duty to get her ‘settled’).

All women legally staying apart from their husbands (even if within the same house, under PWDVA). They are at high risk of violence from their husbands. Denial of access to children (especially boys), property, cashflow, and documents is a reality or a constant threat.

Specific needs: They require psycho-social support, protection from their spouse, access to children and cashflow sufficient to  establish independent lives outside marital structures.

This is a small, but growing, category of women who were legally married and legally separated by due process. They are at high risk of violence from their ex-husbands. Denial of access to children (especially boys), property, cashflow, and documents is a reality or a constant threat.

Specific needs: Apart from significant psycho-social support to navigate societal judgment, emotional distress, and the practical challenges of establishing independent lives outside traditional marital structures, they need support to build/rebuild all their documentation to re-establish their identity. This ranges from name changes on everything from ID cards, certificates, and property documents to getting new ration cards, new bank accounts and credit scores. A house, even on outright purchase, is a herculean task. She has to practically start from the scratch, with children in tow. Court orders need to be quickly and efficiently enforced without official lethargy.

A woman whose husband has died (or has been missing without trace for over seven years).

Given prevailing social norms, where an overwhelming majority of women and girls are expected to marry, almost invariably to older men, combined with the undeniable fact of women’s greater longevity, Nearly all ever-married women will, at some point, outlive their husband, meaning virtually every woman and girl in India will become a widow. The rare few who die earlier than their husbands are either murdered or die at childbirth.

Coveting their property, they are often branded as witches or bad luck by the family and community, and then abused – up to being killed for ‘witchcraft’. Even their children take away their property and leave them destitute.
Specific needs: Beyond economic and safety concerns, widows require specific support to overcome deep-seated stigma and cultural barriers that often dictate their dress, social participation, and even their emotional expression.

Found in the marine fisher communities, this term is used by fisherwomen with missing husbands. When the fate of their husbands is in legal limbo for extended periods, these women are trapped in a state of ambiguous loss, requiring specific relief measures and psycho-social support to cope with uncertainty and economic hardship.

Specific needs: The Government of Tamil Nadu recognises the distress and has a scheme to bridge the gap between the (presumed temporary) loss and the insurance payouts. The scheme needs to be streamlined – primarily with faster disbursement and less documentation – to minimise family disruption.

 Indian society claims the right over women’s bodies, and kills those who chose their husband. These marriages of choice – default across the civilised world – are quaintly labelled ‘love marriages’ in India, stigmatised, and the couple are murdered in socially sanctioned phallic rage induced community killings (PRICK). These PRICKs are justified as ‘honour’ killings, in the bizarre logic that dis-honour is located in the penis. It does not matter if both the couples are from the same community, caste, and fulfil all other social and legal conditions – just choosing their spouse is sufficient to get them killed. Those whose husbands were murdered due to marriages of choice are likely to be in their teens or early twenties at most.

Specific needs: These couples (and later the widows) need enhanced protection and comprehensive socioeconomic rehabilitation to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of such profound violence.

Widows whose husbands have died due to alcoholism. TASMAC—The Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation is a company owned by the Government of Tamil Nadu, which has a monopoly over wholesale and retail vending of alcoholic beverages in the state —is to provide affordable, safe, liquor. Though the state monopoly of liquor prevents the worst of alcohol related deaths—the instant ones due to tainted arrack—deaths due to abuse at shockingly young ages is undeniable, and a widely prevalent epidemic. Let alone the social costs, even the economic cost of this policy—working days lost, medical costs, policing and administrative costs—are far in excess of the revenue earned through state monopoly. Often below 30, sometimes in their teens with multiple children, these women are victims of state policy.

Specific needs: The existence of these TASMAC widows is denied by the state, so addressing their needs means acknowledging the pathway to widowhood in the first place – which the state is loathe to do since it implies state liability.

 When ‘love marriages’ are across communities, caste, or religion, especially when the woman has a perceived higher social station than the man (female hypogamy), caste and state sanctioned violence is virtually certain.

Specific needs: Women whose husbands have been victims of caste atrocities or religion-related hate crimes face an additional layer of ostracism and therefore need more proactive support, solidarity, relief, and rehabilitation

These women endure lifelong medical care needs for their well-being, continuous protection from further harm, and ongoing legal support to secure maintenance and justice. Their journey is one of immense physical and psychological resilience.

Specific needs: Safe house with peer support, lifelong medical care, rehabilitation, protection from the abuser community (the abuser is always supported by his family and community to the extent of demonising the survivor).

Sex workers are often single and face stigma – though it is the male ‘pillars of society’ who are their most frequent clients.

Specific needs: Sex-work should be decriminalised and occupational health and safety should be prioritised for them. While many opt for sex-work out of choice, there needs to be a pathway for them to be reintegrated into society without sigma when they decide to move out of the profession whether due to old age or any reason.

These women face unique forms of discrimination and stigma rooted in religious and cultural biases. India does not have protections for them, though Tamil Nadu has a rich history of peaceful – and ritually celebratory – coexistence, as in the Mamallapuram Kootandavan festival commemorating Abhimanyu’s wedding with Lord Krishna,

Specific needs: They need the robust support of secular state institutions to ensure their rights and safety, including legal protection, cultural shift, and coverage in the state social security net.

A disproportionate number of women with disabilities are effectively single and face immense challenges in securing caretakers, especially as they age and family support diminishes or becomes unavailable. Their needs are often overlooked in broader discussions of single women.

Specific needs: They need to be prioritised, even among single women. (SWAN covers all households with PwDs in the community irrespective of any and all other status).