Marital rape - it should be criminalised

India just moved to End Decades Of Injustice And Criminalise Marital Rape. It's a welcome move and high time India recognizes marital rape being on par with domestic violence. While India progresses with such a rule, Malaysia is being regressive by not recognizing marital rape as a punishable crime. This article will discuss on why marital rape is a serious issue that is often overlooked in the name of sanctity of marriage.

“It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to various factors like level of education/illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mindset of the society to treat the marriage as a sacrament, etc.,” Maneka Gandhi, India's Women and Child Development minister said in a written reply in the Upper House in response to a question on whether the government plans to criminalise marital rape.

While outwardly, marriage is seen as auspicious and sanctimonious, if I am to put it crudely, it's just a legal contract to have sex. And, in the context of marital rape, without the consent of the wife. In our society, women are not considered humans but property that once married, belongs wholly to the husband. We know all too well that Indian actresses quit acting as heroine after they get hitched. It's got to do with the patriarchal ideology that a woman, once married, belongs to her husband and can't be touched by another man even if it's just acting - this dynamics is what is behind marital rape, at least for Indians. 

Marital rape is also shown in films - I saw it in two movies, Provoked and Bhag Milkha Bhag, both based on true stories of Kiranjit Ahluwalia and Milkha Singh.



Some believe that there is no such thing as marital rape & that it's a modern term made up by feminists who burn bras and condemn Father's Day as it offends single mothers and lesbians. Well, there's something called common sense and discern. Marital rape isn't taken as an issue even on grounds that it's a wife's duty to meet their husband's sexual needs at all times, like it or not, with consent or not. Here, a Muslim cleric issued a fatwa that women should give sex for their husband on camel backs even. Like I said, it's the perception that when a woman gets married, she is her husband's property. In KK's case, we don't even need to marry, there are fake Facebook profiles called Kannammaa Purushan (Kannammaa's Husband) which harass us on our Facebook page, ordering us to fulfill our wifely duties and not be a loose cannon but a good woman who fulfills her husband's every whim and fancy. And, many guys were going around saying, "Kannammaa is our property. It's this propriety attitude that causes all these. Just see how women are viewed as objects by these conventionally patriarchal overdosed males and behave, with impunity,

Another claim is  it will ruin marriage if government criminalized marital rape as a law etc.. For these people, rites and society's idea of the ideal life are more important than women's dire situations, situations that are painful at the hands of the very men they married. If I am to recount a personal experience, my cousin sister's husband scolds her abominably when she refuses sex, saying stuff like, "For whom you're saving your energy for? If you won't sleep with me, who are you planning to sleep with?" She always gave in, weeping bitterly while he was at it. That can be classified as marital rape. She divorced him though but the charges pressed don't include marital rape. What kind of marriage it will be for a woman who's body is disgraced and pained by the very man that should love and protect her? People are more important than the sanctity of rites and religion. To espouse those rites and religion, there should be people around not?

The third factor are the myths surrounding rape. A large number of Indians hold that dressing of women causes rape. They think the solvent for rape or at least to reduce the number of rapes, women should cover up in accordance to Indian culture - whomever who don't cover up, deserve to be raped. On the contrary, when rapists in prison were interviewed, none of them picked on the most scantily woman to rape - they selected their victims purely based on opportunity and vulnerability. Even men are raped anally by other men - it's the women not covering up the cause for this too? 80% of rapes are committed by people the victims know. Even when rapes committed by strangers happen, they're characterized by opportunity and vulnerability, not dressing. Marital rape is based on vulnerability as well, where the wife is physically weak and vulnerable,. It's time we have a paradigm shift on what causes rape and quit victim blaming and encourage rape by giving rapists the you're-not-entirely-at-fault-you-were-tempted justification.

Rape is rape whether it's done by a stranger or your husband - just as painful. Just because a woman is married, it doesn't mean she can't say 'NO' to sex - she has that right and it should be respected.