The Karnataka High Court stated Marriage is not a license to “unleash a vicious beast”, in a landmark ruling that permitted rape charges to be filed against a husband accused of forcing his wife to be a “sex slave.” Marriage should be understood to confer any unique male privilege or a license to release a vicious beast, in my opinion. If it is punishable by a man, it should be punishable by a man, even if the man is a husband.
A terrible act of sexual attack on the wife, even if committed by the husband, can only be described as rape. Such sexual assault by a husband on his wife has serious ramifications for the wife’s mental health; it has both psychological and physiological effects on her. Such men’ actions scar the souls of their spouses. As a result, the ruling stated that lawmakers must now “heed the voices of silence.”
According to the High Court, the “age-old notion and tradition that husbands are the rulers of their wives’ bodies, minds, and souls shall be erased.” Such cases are proliferating in the country solely because of that “archaic, regressive, and predetermined mindset.”
Despite years of campaigning, marital rape is not a criminal offense in India.
The Karnataka High Court stated that it was not discussing whether marital rape should be considered an offense. It was up to the legislature to decide. “This court is simply concerned with the rape case being made against the husband, who is accused of raping his wife.”
The case includes a woman who testified in court that her husband treated her like a sex slave from the beginning of their marriage. Her spouse was described as “inhuman,” and she said that he pushed her to have unnatural sex, even in front of her daughter.
The High Court ruled that if any man was free from rape charges just because he was a husband, it amounted to legal inequity and a breach of the constitution.
“Woman and man are equal under the constitution and cannot be made unequal by any exemption to Section 375 (rape) of the IPC (Indian Penal Code). It is up to the legislators to consider the existence of such inequities in the law “The High Court stated.
“In my considered opinion, the expression is not progressive but backward, wherein a woman is seen as a subservient to the husband, whose concept abhors equality,” the judgment said, adding that this was why several countries had recognized marital rape or spousal rape.
Marital rape is unlawful in 50 American states, three Australian states, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and several other nations, according to the court.
In February, the Delhi High Court chastised the Centre for its inaction on criminalizing marital rape, saying: “You must take the plunge. If you claim the court should defer the case indefinitely, it won’t happen.”
The Centre has stated in court that the subject includes “intimate familial ties” and that it must assess the societal impact before issuing a response. It has also stated that it must become “completely acquainted” with “prevailing ground realities” in various segments of society.
