“Rape Is Rape, Even If The Husband Is The Perpetrator”

Trigger warning: marital rape, sexual violence

Shalu Sahni* from Bihar, wakes up every morning and starts her day by making breakfast for her husband, before he leaves to go to work. Her day begins and ends with taking care of his needs.

On asking her what she really thinks about the concept of marital rape, Shalu says she is certain that her husband has made sexual contact without her consent, multiple times, throughout the course of their marriage.

On the contrary, Ritika Sharma, a 22-year-old civil services aspirant from Delhi, said that she doesn’t really know what the term means.

However, she also said that if a person is forcefully trying to make sexual contact with another person, then it should count as rape, irrespective of whether the perpetrator is a husband or someone else. “If it’s (sex) being done out of force, then it is rape,” asserted Ritika.

The Normalisation Of Rape In Indian Families

Indian houses are archives of legends, that are passed on from generation to generation. We follow traditions and pass on customs. Often, there is a close connection that grows between the mother and daughter in family. A mother teaches her daughter the dos and don’ts of femininity in a gender-essentialist world.

However, above these patriarchal teachings, she also provides her with a thin veil to help see things clearly in a man’s world—as an effort to aid her daughter to make finer choices. She does so in the hopes that her daughter will better cross the hurdles that she, herself, has faced in her life.

I was very young when my mom recited to me the anecdotes that do not make up for the legendary stories parents usually tell their children. The trauma of being a woman is almost hidden in these close-knit families; men of the house are not aware of it and those who are, pretend not to be.

There is an unspoken, unseen awkwardness between closely related people that live in the same house or meet at family gatherings, during festivals and weddings.

Hence, traumas are normalised as a casual and an everyday outcome in the lives of women in great and grand families. This is also prevalent in the economically weaker sections and rural areas, due to a lack of financial independence, as well as awareness about abuse and one’s rights, on the part of women.

Women in rural areas are likely to suffer more forms of spousal violence than women in urban areas, due to the low levels of literacy, economic status and drinking habits of husbands. These are some of the prime factors that lead to domestic violence (physical and sexual) against married women.

Contradictions Between The Law And Survivors’ Experiences

A 2016 study conducted by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) revealed that the women in rural areas suffered more from sexual abuse by their own husbands, in comparison to women living in urban localities.

However, in modern India, as many of us like to call it, the conversation around marital rape is finally taking shape, with the hope of delivering a mandate in favour of the survivors of marital rape seeking justice.

Currently, Article 375 of the “Indian Penal Code” which illustrates the legal definition of rape, makes a “special exception” in the case of sexual contact made between married spouses, contradicting the NFHS survey which reported that 86% of women who were survivors of sexual abuse said that their own husbands were the perpetrators.

This is why we need a law condemning marital rape, instead of allowing it to be perpetrated with legal sanctions in favour of it. Lawyer Karuna Nundy, the Rit Foundation, and the All India Democratic Women’s Association, are some of the faces at the forefront of the fight against the legalisation of marital rape. 

Marital Rape: Why Is It Alien To Men?

Marital rape, an alien phenomenon to most Indian, married men, has started a debate on the Internet, with many discussing the pros and cons of such a law on social media platforms.

Men’s rights activists and many others, outwardly refute the need for an anti-marital rape law, claiming that the concept is a western idea introduced by feminists who wants to disrupt Indian culture.

The normalisation of rape inside the institution of marriage, is so much so that the very idea of women having agency over their own bodies, hurts the sentiments of these men.

Marriage strike is another example of the Indian man’s state of mind. It is sure to boggle the mind of any sane human. Marriage strike—a campaign run on Twitter—saw Indian men protesting against the criminalisation of marital rape; arguing that if the law is legalised, it would be used against them.

The hashtag #MarriageStrike became the emblem of men swearing never to get married if the exception of Article 375 was revoked.

Indian Society Is Suffering From Inequality

In a society where most men are introduced to sex through porn sites and locker room banter, the caricatures of women are drawn not very carefully, but alluringly. In such an environment, it becomes harder for men to comprehend the intricacies of the life of a woman in a patriarchal society.

The stereotypes of men always wanting sex, make an equal contribution to increasing this gap.

In 2021, the Supreme Court of India stayed the arrest of a man accused of raping his former partner. “However brutal the husband is, can sexual intercourse between husband and wife be called rape?” questioned the former chief justice of India, Sharad Arvind Bobde, while freeing the accused.

Patriarchy, instilled in its purest forms even in the random aspects of our daily lives, is close to impossible to erase… Especially when India’s lawmakers are comfortable with providing a license to rape, to Indian men.

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*name changed to protect confidentiality

Featured image is for representational purposes only. Photo credit: IMDB.

This is the first part of the three-part series on ‘the need for a law against marital rape’ as a part of the Justicemakers’ Writer’s Training Program, run in partnership with Agami and Ashoka’s Law For All Initiative. You can find the second and third part here and here.