Syllabus: Violence against women.
News In short:
The Chhattisgarh High Court acquitted a man of marital rape and ruled that sexual intercourse between legally wedded man and woman is not rape even if it is by force or against the wishes of the wife.
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE:
Syllabus: Violence against women.
What is Marital Rape?
- Marital rape is any unwanted Sexual Acts by a Spouse or Ex-Spouse, committed without consent and/or against a person’s will, obtained by force, or threat of force, intimidation, or when a person is unable to consent
Sociology of Not Criminalising Marital Rape:
- Mainstream perception that marriage gives the husband constant consent for sexual intercourse.
- Women, therefore, end up being perceived as baby-making machines where their right to bodily autonomy and reproductive rights are inconceivable and preposterous.
- According to Morton Hunt, an American psychologist “the typical marital rapist is a man who still believes that husbands are supposed to “rule” their wives.
- The inability of law and legal institutions to deal with marital rape exposes the limits of the law. It shows that the law predominantly serves the aspirations of the dominant class, at the expense of the marginalised and weak.
Other Related Laws:
- Section 376-A was added in the Indian Penal Code, 1860, which criminalized the rape of a judicially separated wife.
