NEW DELHI, Sept 13: An Indian college girl has temporarily married her teenaged boyfriend’s elder brother so she can live in the same house as her lover until he is old enough to marry her, the Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

Sneha Patel, 19, a resident of the western Indian state of Gujarat, was in love with Yash Kishan Parmar, also 19, and wanted to marry him despite her parents’ opposition to the match, the newspaper said.

But the legal age for marriage in India — 18 for girls and 21 for boys — put a spoke in their plans. Live-in relationships are not very popular in the tradition-bound country.

Patel and Parmar eloped briefly but, not wanting to be on the run until Parmar was 21, Patel proposed that she would marry his elder brother and divorce him two years later.

The elder brother even agreed to sign a contract saying he would divorce Patel after two years and treat her as his younger brother’s wife until then, the newspaper said.—Reuters