Exploring suicide trends in India: Marriage, gender, and family roles

• Author Details:   
• Pravati Dalua
• Chittaranjan Behera ^*

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In the current paper, National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2022 data on suicide related fatalities in India is interpreted sociologically by focusing on the intersecting roles of family, gender and marital status. While suicide is often looked from the perspective of mental health issue, this approach obscures the social patterns that underlie the occurrence of this mental health. The study highlights how a large proportion of suicides are linked to familial and interpersonal stressors, yet they are fragmented into narrow administrative categories in the report overlooking their interconnectedness. By examining how patriarchiarchal family structures, gendered role expectations and marital roles shape the experiences of distress, the paper argues that suicide in India must be understood within the framework of broader social transformations related to the domain of family. The paper calls for a shift from individual-centric to structure-aware strategies in both research and prevention strategies in India.