An influential group of Indian Muslims is campaigning to stop men from divorcing their wives by simply saying the word "talaq", or divorce, three times.
Separate civil laws govern marriage and divorce for the 120 million Muslims in India, which is a secular state although most of its people are Hindu.
Efforts by bodies such as the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which is made up of Islamic community leaders, have sway over India's Muslims but no authority.
The board decided late on Sunday to prescribe a model format of marriage certificates to prevent the "triple talaq" divorce that has drawn criticism from women's groups and Hindu groups that call for the use of common civil laws.
"We wish to educate the common masses and to explain to them the implications of decisions taken in haste," Zafaryab Jilani, a lawyer for the Muslim board, said, adding that even the Koran clearly spelt out that instant divorces were not desirable.
Muslims in one-billion-strong India largely follow Islamic laws that are interpreted and administered mainly by religious and community leaders, with differences between sects.
"We have resolved that every 'nikahnama' (marriage decree) should have an attachment prescribing alternative ways of divorce as laid down in the Shariat," Syed Nizamuddin, general secretary of the AIMPB, told reporters in the northern city of Kanpur.
The board said religious courts run by qazis, or community judges, could provide a way out for couples involved in disputes.
"The best way suggested by us was to go for a mutually agreed arbitrator, but if that was not acceptable, the other alternative could be to approach the Qazi court," Nizamuddin said.
HINDU NATIONALIST PROTESTS
Muslim divorces have been a controversial issue in India.
A case in the mid-1980s involving Shah Bano, who took her rejected demand for alimony to the Supreme Court, triggered debate across India on whether the court had jurisdiction over Muslim personal laws.
The court's verdict upholding her right to alimony was later reversed by a law pushed through by the government of the day, run by the Congress party, setting off protests by opposition Hindu nationalists, who gained in popularity.
The protests have raised awareness in the community of the need to regulate its practices, criticised by Hindu right-wingers as more stringent than some Islamic nations.
There were murmurs in the community after the board's decision, signalling sectarian differences.
"After all, different sects and sub-sects of Muslims have their own pattern of dispensation of justice, so Qazi courts may not be the appropriate solution," said a prominent Sunni leader, who asked not to be identified.