SEXUAL AUTONOMY AND MARRIAGE LAWS IN INDIA
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Abstract
Sexual intercourse is held to be the bedrock of every marriage. In theory, this means that both the spouses in the marriage have a social and legal duty towards the sexual needs of the other spouse. However, we see that more often than not, it is the woman who has to bear the brunt of this mandate. Especially in India, the governing social and legal codes seem to reinforce the denial to a woman, the right to her own person.
The reason this law fails to be a two-way street is due to the power dynamics and the relationship of domination and dependence entailing the institution of marriage. In India, for the longest time, women have been considered to be the chattel of men- their fathers before marriage and husbands after marriage. Manu believed that ‘A woman is the property of her father as a child, her husband as an adult and her son when she is an old widow.’
In this paper, the researcher shall examine the manner in which marriage laws in India restrict the sexual autonomy, especially of a woman. The larger objective of this paper is to identify the provisions in Indian Family law and their interpretation that further deny women their basic human right of sexual agency.
Denial of sexual intercourse for no specific reason has been construed as mental cruelty. Such inaction therefore has been held to be a ground for divorce under law. This provision has, however, been given a very wide interpretation. Consequently, this has opened the floodgates to men seeking divorce on absolutely frivolous grounds. In some cases, surprisingly, the courts even grant the same by ruling that sexual satisfaction is the husband’s and wife’s entitlement and duty respectively. This problem however, is only the tip of the ice-berg. The bigger problem is when marriage allows sexual intercourse to man as a matter of entitlement, the conditions of which are undefined. Laws exempting marital rape only reinforce this notion and instead of protecting women who are in a vulnerable position, further add to their vulnerability. Thereafter, the researcher shall delve into the physical and psychological impact of forced marital sex on a woman.
The researcher thus contends that the laws regulating the institution of marriage in India, tend to restrict and deny the right to sexual autonomy of married women.
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