Marital Rape: An Introspection

Authors: Gaurav Goyal and Anand Kamal, Students, Symbiosis Law School, Noida, India

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Abstract

The common acceptance of the proposition that marriage can be justification to rape is as much disturbing as it is paradoxical to the efforts put in the recent legislative amendments and judicial pronouncements to effectuate the deterrence against the sexual offences more rigorously. This paper has tried to establish that any justification as to why Marital Rape should not be criminalized holds no ground and are in stark contradiction to the fundamental Human rights of the married women. It took notice of several reports, judicial pronouncements and even the recommendations of the law commission reports that votes for the fact that marital rape should no further be an exception to rape as this very idea is violating the basic tenet of the criminal law by presuming the consent for sexual intercourse by marriage. The paper also ventures into several international conventions and framework that had led to the criminalisation of the marital rape in some of the jurisdictions of the world, giving a perspective that why it’s the high time that India too should consider and accept the idea in furtherance of the protecting the rights of the married women.

Keywords: Marital rape, Sexual Abuse, Crime.

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