Complexities of the marital rape debate in India

This two-part article highlights the lack of a legal framework recognising marital rape in India and attempts to navigate the complex beliefs, cultural ethos, attitudes, relations and power dynamics, which constitute the interlinked roots of the problem. This article also lays emphasis upon the notion of ‘consent’, required in sexual intercourse within marriage. In Part 2 of the article, solutions have been proposed that are immediate, appeal to the larger audience and can concretise efforts towards a policy change.
 
Sexual intercourse within marriage without consent, or commonly denominated marital rape, constitutes a grievous violation of human rights and posits a serious public health problem. It is one of the most widespread forms of violence against women in India. According to the National Family Health Survey of 2015-16 (NFHS-4), 83 per cent of ever-married women between the ages of 15-49 years who have ever experienced sexual violence reported their current husband as the perpetrator with another 7 per cent reporting their former spouse. In 2013, the United Nations Population Fund (UNDP) and the International Center for Research on Women performed a survey on more than 9,200 men across seven Indian states and one-third of them admitted to having forced sexual act on their wives, while 60 percent said they had used some form of violence to assert dominance over their partners.
 
Sexual intercourse without consent within marriage can currently take place legally in India. Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which defines “rape” and consent”, states that “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape.” On 11th October 2017, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that part of the Indian Penal Code that excused marital rape of minors between the ages of 15-18, was unconstitutional. However, adult women who are married and who experience sexual violence from their spouses still have no legal basis to complain. The existence of this archaic provision unveils the prevaricate attitude of consequent governments with respect to women safety.
 
There are instances when the government has made feeble attempts to initiate a comprehensive law to criminalise marital rape, but have immediately faced heavy opposition from men’s rights activists and traditionalists who see the proposition as a Western concept, and as an attempt to undermine the sanctity of marriages, which consequently harms the cultural ethos. Even a section of the judiciary has raised questions regarding the implementation of the act followed by the pretext of its misuse.
 
Marital rape is a complex problem and only a holistic assessment of the profundity of its origins and the extent of its ramifications can help address the problem.
 
 
Pallavi Karnatak
March 4, 2019
 
 

source https://indiaoutbound.org/complexities-of-the-marital-rape-debate-in-india/