Marital rape goes against the right to one’s body
To say marriage is a sanction for sexual violence violates a woman’s autonomy
The submission by the government in the Delhi High Court arguing that criminalising marital rape within a marriage “may destabilise the institution of marriage” and could become a tool of harassment of husbands is a regressive stand. The government has argued that . Adding insult to injury was the Twitter statement of Swaraj Kaushal, Mizoram Governor and husband of the minister of external affairs Sushma Swaraj that if marital rape were to be criminalised, “there will be more husbands in the jail, than in the house.”
Rape is an act of sexual assault inflicted upon a person against their will. Whether the perpetrator is married to the victim or not, the nature of the act does not change. If anything, the trauma is worse because the victim must continue to live with the perpetrator even after the assault. It is not simply a question of social sanction for sexual relations that marriage in conservative societies provides; it is a far more basic question of a person’s right to their own body. The suggestion that such a law will be misused to persecute men attempts to perpetuate a fear that “disgruntled” women would seek revenge upon their husbands by the use of this law. This suggestion diminishes the struggle that thousands of women, stuck in marriages that they cannot leave for fear of social ostracism, face every single day. It diminishes also the courage that victims of sexual abuse – irrespective of gender – show when they admit to having been raped in a society that continues to shame the victims of such abuse. As for misuse, that is a possibility with almost every law. It stands to reason that convictions will be meted out only after investigations.
India is a land of glaring inequalities of class, caste, religion, and gender. Arguments against the criminalisation of marital rape only add to them. What we need is mechanisms that will allow victims to not only come forward to report such incidents, but also to help them cope with the trauma that they endure.