“No means a no even when she is your wife” – Amitabh Bachchan, Pink.
It’s 2021 and it’s perfectly fine for a man to rape a woman as long as he is her husband. Since ancient times, “rape” has been a property crime against the husband or father, rather than the woman herself. Rape was not possible within a marriage because it was considered that a man could do anything with his “property”. As generations progressed, rape laws evolved but it was always thought that a woman’s “purity” couldn’t be destroyed by her husband. It was considered that by signing the marriage papers a woman “gives her body” to her husband.
Section 375 of the Indian penal code(IPC) considers forced sex in marriages a crime only when the wife is below 15. As per the current law, a woman is presumed to deliver consent after she enters into a marital relation.
A woman is trained to give in to the demands of her husband. It is not even considered rape as “how can a husband rape his wife?” “He cares for her after all” “He just wants some attention after the long tiring day”. It’s high time we raise our concern towards the unheard, untold emotional traumas of women that she undergoes during or after sex. Politicians and public figures every iterated that criminalising rape with the marriage will “destroy marriages”. Basic human rights come above the understanding of a family. Consent is what matters the most.