Criminalizing marital rape would be “excessively harsh,” the Indian government has said, in a blow to campaigners ahead of a long-awaited Supreme Court decision that will affect hundreds of millions of people in India for generations.
In India, it is not considered rape if a man forces sex or sexual acts on his wife, as long as she is over 18, due to an exception in a British colonial-era law.
Most Western and common law jurisdictions have long since rectified this – Britain outlawed marital rape in 1991, for example, and it is illegal in all 50 US states.
But across the world, about 40 countries do not have legislation that addresses the issue of marital rape – and among those that do, the penalties for non-consensual sex within marriage are “significantly lower” than other rape cases, according to the United Nations Population Fund’s 2021 State of World Population review.
Now I fully agree that marital rape should definitely have the same repercussions as rape. However, the summary posted made me think initially that there was no protection for women against domestic violence in India at all.
After some googling, I found some more context
“It is submitted that the act colloquially referred to as ‘marital rape’ ought to be illegal and criminalised. The Central Government asserts that a woman’s consent is not obliterated by marriage, and its violation should result in penal consequences. However, the consequences of such violations within marriage differ from those outside it. Parliament has provided different remedies, including criminal law provisions, to protect consent within marriage. Sections 354, 354A, 354B, 498A IPC, and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, ensure serious penal consequences for such violations,”
Tl;dr marital rape is illegal and can be prosecuted. But somehow the court thinks that the act of marriage changes the situation.
Yeessh
still one of the worst places to be especially if you identify as a woman it seems
I fucking hate this so much. For context, I’m an Indian, living in India. I can’t believe people here value these archaic “customs” so much that they can go on record downplaying rape to protect the “institution of marriage”.
Fuck all of em and fuck their customs. Worst part is that I found out about this because of western media. Maybe the local media did cover it, I should start reading more…
In Germany marital rape is punished in the same way as any other rape since 1997 (which to me always seemed horrifically late). But one of the guys who voted against it is his party’s candidate for the post of Chancellor in the election next year.
Maybe we are not as far beyond these misogynistic worldviews as we like to believe.
It was still punishable as coercion. Corporal punishment (i.e. what you’d do to coerce) of wives was outlawed in the early 1800s (and somehow only on the books since the late 1700s), it stuck around quite a bit longer for serfs, for underage apprentices and I think at schools it stuck around until 1956, your own children until 2000.
There’s much more to it than misogyny it was a culture of coercion in general.
Friendly reminder MLK was killed in 1968. One year before the moonlanding. I always thought open and legal racial segregation was a century or more ago. It hasn’t even been 100 years since the holocaust and bloody nazis are popular again. Wtf.
moonlanding
That’s two words, and your cohort is showing.
I would never set foot in India.
