Friday, August 28, 2009

Indian man married 14 women in two years

An Indian engineer has been charged with bigamy after wooing 14 women and marrying them in the space of just two and a half years. The case has revealed the desperation of middle class Indian women in their quest for a high-status husband.

Most of Tushar Waghmare's wives were highly educated women who were so taken with his professional qualifications that they did not question his background.

Marriage is the most important assertion of status in India's rigidly hierarchical society, and is usually an alliance of compatible families more often than a love match between bride and groom. Mr Waghmare, 40, an Air India engineer from Mumbai, found the women on Indian matrimonial websites, where he described himself as a divorcee looking for a high-caste Brahmin career woman.

Three of the women who replied and eventually married him were engineers themselves or architects. Police said Mr Waghmare had met all their families, who were so awed by his £900-a-month salary that they failed to question him.

Because he provided for them, they did not ask him any questions when he spent up to just three days with each of the women a month before saying he had to work away from home.

Detectives said he was eventually caught when his salary would not stretch to each of his 14 wives and they had to support him instead. "None of the women or their parents ever thought of doing a background check on him as they would be impressed with his job profile," said a policeman.

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