An Analysis on the Criminality of Marital Rape in India

Abstract

An 18-year-old girl, in an arranged marriage to a man she has met probably once, maximum twice. She dreams of love and care that he had promised in front of others; this shatters the second they enter the bedroom. She is subject to physical, sexual, and verbal abuse. Where she expected affection, she is met with scars, both physical and mental, and where she looked for love, she felt lust and hatred. Speaking to her family is met with responses asking her to adjust to it. The policemen laugh at her when she tries to file a complaint; she becomes the perpetrator when filing for a divorce. “This is a part of marriage; as a woman, you have to try and adjust,” these words from friends and family become a daily reminder of the scars that she bears. Every ordeal she goes through is described as a part of normalcy in married life, including a candle being inserted into her vagina! When she decides to approach the Court, the Supreme Court tells her that her problem is a personal claim and not a public one; the law cannot be changed for a single person. This sorry state of affairs is a reality for numerous women in our country, where there isn’t legal support for married women whose husbands have raped. Marital Rape is real and is happening around us all.