5 May 2015

Marital Rape - A Feminist Tool To Criminalize Marriage In India

Breaking: Protesters standing up to India’s domestic violence laws and the ways they are abused are being detained by police en mass. Follow the hashtag #scrap498A to stay abreast of new developments.
By Feminists in India have recently raised the bogeyman of marital rape. It is part of their strategy to criminalize marriage and make it a redundant institution. Matters relating to marriage are internal to sovereign governments. However, feminists use the United Nation and treaties like the Convention to Eliminate all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to impose their will on sovereign countries. They use crass statistics and questionable surveys to justify their unjust demands.
In India marriage is a sacrament. However, feminists have always viewed marriage as an institution that enslaves women. Hence they want this institution to be destroyed. The Feminists declared in 1969 thatmarriage and the family must be eliminated.”

As a high-profile couple, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir always expressed opposition to marriage. According to them “marriage, understood existentially, proposes to join two free selves into one heading, thus denying the freedom, the complete foundation, of each self”.
Andrea Dworkin said that marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice.
Domestic violence and marital rapes are strategies used by feminists to vilify the institution of marriage.
Laws like no fault divorce, domestic violence, marital rape, alimony and child support have already made marriage an extinct institution in many countries. Hence caution must be exercised before Indian Law makers copy such laws.
The concept of marital rape is an oxymoron. Marriage is a licence for sex. A woman who does not want to have sex with her husband should separate from him and file for divorce.
The noted English jurist, Sir Matthew Hale, stated the position of the common law in The History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736) that a husband cannot be guilty of the rape of his wife because the wife “hath given up herself in this kind to her husband, which she cannot retract”.
The great jurist Sir William Blackstone wrote in “Commentaries on the Laws of England” that”Consensus, non concubitus, facit nuptias“[“Consent, not cohabitation, makes the marriage”]. Hence consent for sex is implied when a man and woman get married.
Since family is the cornerstone of society, Indian society pays much attention to preserve its stability and well-being. Indian society prohibits adultery and marital infidelity, hence marriage is where both partners should seek sexual fulfillment. Denying each other sex is a crime except in exceptional circumstances. This applies to both man and woman. In respecting mutual duties and responsibilities lies the successful marital relationship.
Rape is the term used to describe sexual intercourse committed without a person’s consent and / or against a person’s will. The question is why would a man rape his wife? Is it not also possible for a woman to force herself on an unwilling husband?
Marriage is a partnership of trust. If a man should not subject his wife to physical pain, the wife should not subject him to the rigors of the criminal justice system.
What should a man do if he is regularly denied sex by his wife? Should he masturbate, visit brothels or should be commit adultery? It may be noted that feminists want to decriminalize adultery so that marriage is an affair only on paper.
Rights come with duties. A woman in India has a right to maintenance even when husband is sick, and incapable of earning or is unemployed. He is duty bound to pay his wife alimony even after divorce. The Indian Courts have held that a man must “beg, borrow or steal” but he must maintain his wife. Then why shouldn’t a man have right to have coitus with his wife if he is duty bound to maintain her?
Since hindsight shows that anti dowry laws and domestic violence are widely abused in India and hence the question is will women accuse their husband of rape on the slightest pretext? How can the court be sure that marital rape has been committed?
Hence it can be concluded that Indian Lawmakers should safeguard the institution of marriage and desist from enacting any law that recognizes and penalizes marital rape.


    About Amartya Talukdar

    Amartya is a dedicated humanist living in Kolkata in India. He attended Banaras Hindu University. He is a relentless campaigner for Indian and family values.

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