India is a nation where being raped and molested always shows up in the news headlines. There have been cases in India that have been outraged internationally. But apparently the saddest part of the rape story in India is that there is still one kind of rape that is still legal in this country. And the worst part of it is, this one has been even not considered a rape due to shame and cultural restrictions and actually considered as a duty of a woman who is married as a wife to do it. Yes, it is about marital rape.
This is the rape that may be actually happening right next door, in the confines of the four walls of a house, where a woman is suppose to feel safe and protected. That good Indian wife, who you always meet in the street, who is doing her daily household duties to be a good wife, might not even tell you that she is living a hell every night she goes to bed with her husband.
A country where talking about sex is frowned upon, Marital Rape is a topic that never gets discussed. Like child molestation, martial rape is one of the most hideous crimes about sex in the Indian society that happens and still is never talked about. It is a rape that happens to a woman who is married to a man, a husband who should be the one protecting her and be responsible for her security.
During the British rule in India, there were various laws that was introduced and even though it has been decades that India got it's independence, they are still stuck with preposterous laws that has never been amended. The Indian Penal Code (IPC) does not identify a martial rape and a rape by a husband to his wife isn't considered rape. Rape by very definition is forced sexual activity involving violence but IPC doesn't consider this violence if committed by a husband. In addition to it, this is only considered a rape if the wife is below 15 years of age and is forced for sex, which does not make any sense.
In the section 375 of the IPC, it is stated that "Sexual Intercourse or act by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape." This unacceptable law completely avoids the scenarios where a husband brutally tortures and forces his wife for sex. This law is so obsolete that no amendments have been made even after the legal age for a girl to get married has been increased to 18, the law only considers marital rape if the wife is 15 years and below.
Indeed this is a very sad fact that exists in India, where marriage is just a legal licence for a man to have sex with a girl legally, and the woman or the wife actually becomes the object with whom the husband can legally have sex with. She is treated as a thing for use, and not as a human being who has emotions, feels pain and needs to be respected as a human.
With this marital rape being legal, men actually do not tolerate a wife saying no to sex and they actually consider a wife's duty to say yes to sex every time they ask for it as a payment for the food and money he provides to her.
With the insensible rules of the Indian society, it makes a woman believe that her duty is to give it to their husband and is something that they cannot refuse nor is their any support she can get related to this. Even if a woman asks for justice and turns herself towards the law to ask for support and to save her, there is no law in the Indian constitution that would protect her from this crime committed to her everyday. Her marriage is a legal licence to her husband for sexual slavery.
Yes, there are laws that a woman can imply for her protection from various domestic abuse from a husband related to violence but if she is raped by her husband, then there is nothing she can do to protect herself neither can the law authorities do.
Indian Government had a shocking attitude towards making a law to criminalize marital rape. There was a bill that had been presented to the Indian Government against Marital rape but was denied on the basis that it would stress the so called 'Indian Family System'.
What is so unjustified here is that in the so called 'family', the wife, one half of the family is oppressed and the husband, other half of the family actually mastering a legal sexual slavery.
This is a cause of humanity that never gets talked about in India. Martial rape is a very ignorant topic which most people don't even know exists. Share this with as much Indian people because someone has to stand up for it and the power lies in the hands of the people, in a democracy, which India claims to be the biggest in the world. It should be made sure that no woman goes sufferings silently like this because no woman deserves to.
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