Marriage: An Invitation to Rape? - The Economic Transcript

Society perceives rape as something that happens to scantily clad women in murky alleys at nightfall by men they have never seen before. But little do they know the raw, brutal, unflinching struggles of women in abusive marriages where they are not raped by strangers who run away, but by men who justify their brutality and violence using the institution of marriage. This is due to the fact that India has normalized marital rape with none of the 448 Articles in our Constitution charging the guilty; the patriarchal power structures, and the personal and sacrosanct nature of marriage which make it difficult for women to report to the authorities.

Let us consider this situation: If you are out in public and you see someone not wearing any protective headgear, does that give you the right to smash the other person’s skull with a hammer, just because they were not wearing anything to protect their head? No, it does not. In the same way, consent does not stop having importance once two people take marriage vows. Marital rape, in simple words, ‘is the act of engaging in sexual relations with your spouse without their consent.’ It is an issue which is not discussed enough but one which is much more in practice than any other crime. It is no less of an offense than murder, culpable homicide or rape per se. Whether by force, intimidation or coercion, whether by a stranger or your own husband, rape is rape. It impugns the self-worth and dignity of a woman, and scales her identity down to a corpse, who lives under perpetual fear of being violated and injured by the man who comes back home every night to repeat the offense.

This year, across India, Ambedkar was quoted; his photos flaunted, illustrating that the Constitution he fathered was upheld. The Preamble was chanted, and so was his name – Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. Everyone knows of him; ‘The Father of the Indian Constitution’, the first Law and Justice Minister of an Independent India who in Article 21 guarantees that no denizen of India “shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except by procedure established by law and this procedure must be reasonable, fair and just and not arbitrary, whimsical or fanciful.” Yet today, India is one of those thirty-six countries who has not recognized marital rape as a criminal offense. Section 375 deals with the provision of rape under the Indian Penal Code, 1860; in its exception clause explicitly states that marital rape is rape only when the wife is below the age of fifteen. No form of punishment is guaranteed to husbands who rape their wives if they have crossed the age of fifteen. How can the very legislation which makes the legal age of consent for marriage eighteen provide no remedy to girls above the age of fifteen who have been raped within their conjugality? How can the very legislations which term ‘consensual sex between a man and a girl below the age of sixteen years’ as ‘rape’ provide no remedy to girls above the age of fifteen who have been raped by none other but their own husbands?

Now, the question that arises is whether the State can really intrude in the domain of matters restricted to the four walls of the house and let the ‘Law dive into the Privacy of Marriage.’ The answer to this question should be justified with a ‘yes’. Does the State not already invade privacy in the cases of divorce, child custody, domestic violence, dowry deaths and the likes? Then why not include a crime of the most repugnant and abhorrent nature, within the ambit of the laws constructed by the State. Why should marital rape remain outside its confines? The same Law which initiates dispute resolution or operates as an arbitrator during the times of divorce must be the one to assure the protection of the integrity of women and their right over their own bodies.

“I don’t think that marital rape should be regarded as an offense in India, because it will create absolute anarchy in families and our country is sustaining itself because of the family platform which upholds family values.”

~Dipak Mishra, Former Chief Justice of India,

The Squint, 2019.

India is the Land of Rama, Krishna, Buddha and saints who have preached, to practice spiritualism, morals and good conduct. Marital rape strictly does not adhere to Indian culture, family values and ethos. If we begin to analyze the two greatest Epics in Indian Literature, we can come to a straight conclusion that the battles in both of the stories take place because the women in them – Sita and Draupadi had been treated as objects for men’s fulfillment of pleasure and ego, which is the case with Marital Rape too. Should women, in India, continue to live with their rapists everyday just because our Judiciary refuses to acknowledge the offense in the name of culture? It is a concern of imminent shame that even after so many years of Independence, women are still losing their dignity and bodily integrity.

India has been crawling towards the path of development for women in other avenues but there is an urgent desideratum to criminalize marital rape. We, the People of India worship a cow but treat our women like a liability. Agreeing to be someone’s wife does not bind women to a contract and most certainly, does not call for invitation to be raped, violated or abused, because the body might forget the trauma, but the mind never will. Ambedkar needs to be engaged with. We need to pick up his books, read his speeches, explore his politics and understand what he meant when he incorporated the ‘Right to Equality’ in the longest written constitution of any country in the world.

Written by-

Yashasvi Kanodia

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