So, the Delhi High Court is finally hearing both sides of the marital rape debate. From the reports available in media, it’s tough to infer which side the court is tilted towards. However, Court is certain about one thing; protecting the dignity of women. Here we will analyse the possible consequences of the Court’s suggestions and their impact on Indian families. Obviously, history, law and traditions will be our guiding forces.
State entering into the bedroom
In the case of husband and wife, they join hands to share their life together. The dignity of one is a priority of his/her partner as well. What they both decide to do with each-other is inherent to them, until one of them is hurt. In that scenario, it’s justifiable for the state to protect that person.
So, will the state enter into the bedroom? An individual bedroom is private. There is a reason why they have doors and windows. Who will decide what happened in that room? If the law decides, whose side will it take? Will ‘believe the victim’ doctrine apply here? Let’s see
Believe the victim-What it is and how is it applicable?
‘Believe the victim’ is antithetical to civilisational stabilising purpose of the law. This assumes that even before someone has proved that they are harmed, they are believed to have been harmed.
So, if you are injured in a road accident, you can go to the police and say that your neighbours hit you with an iron rod. Thus, their harassment with legal authorities will become a tool for you to settle your personal scores. And boy, it has turned out to be exactly that in the case of women-centric laws.
Laws protecting women from rape, domestic violence and dowry are laws where women’s word is paramount and a man has to prove women wrong. Stats are out there to show how it has panned out
- A 2019 NCRB data shows that more than 74 percent of rape charges were false. That means that the girl actually lied or her near ones made her to lie in order to extort monetary benefits from men. Recent arrest of a serial false rape accuser from Gurugram is one such high-profile instance.
- Similarly, another 2019 data evidently points out that more than 80 percent of dowry and domestic violence cases end in acquittal.
Is it good sense to punish 50 percent of population for the acts of few of them? No legal system or society can maintain its credibility on those kinds of statistics. If one sex looses, both will lose.
Read more: Mankind Pharma makes it tough for good men to come forward in society
How will it affect families?
Families and as a consequence, children will be the main victims of these laws. If marital rape law is brought in, a couple visiting a Police station will become a routine affair. On the slightest of quarrels, the partner will feel free to bring in the police for mediation. This will hamper the privacy and piousness of marriage.
If piousness is violated, there is no point of continuing in marriage. This will only lead to divorce cases and in turn ego-fights for child custody. Only children will lose and no nation can survive without good children.
What about men?
Frankly, no one cares. His consent is assumed. There is no-where for a man to go if a woman enforces on her against his will. No single law exists in India which protects man from woman. Same is expected to be in marital rape laws. It will be assumed that only man can force himself on his wife and not vice-versa. If the state wants to enter into bedroom, it should be looking at both sides of things without any presumption.
Women-centric laws have been slow genocidal against men in its philosophical origin. Renuka Chowdhary, former minister had once famously said, “I had such pity for men”. Marital rape laws will be one more stepping stone towards elimination of men, family system and hence a strong nation from globe. To the writer, it is an ‘impractical flex of intellectual muscle’.