Why The Issue Of Marital Rape Is So Serious And Sensitive

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam 13 December 2023 "Biwi Apne Shauhar Ki Shahwat-Parasti Ka Saamaan Nahin Hai Ke Us Ka Khasam Use Kumhaar Ki Mitti Ki Maanind Raunde." (Wife is not someone whom her man will knead like a potter's earth for his lasciviousness) Late Fahmida Riaz, Pakistan Poet, Writer And Human Rights Activist "Wife's relegation to a mere sex object is a universal phenomenon prevalent in all societies and communities all over the world." Asma Jahangir In Conversation With Germaine Greer, Melbourne, 1999 "Mard Ne Aurat Ke Vajood Ko Rasoi Se Bistar Tak Mahdood Kar Ke Rakh Diya...." (Man limited a woman's role from kitchen to bed). A Female Character In A Story Written By Ismat Chughtai 'Rape has many a hue and shade One also finds it on a marital bed' Anon Observing that marital rape cannot be considered an offence if the wife is above 18 years of age, the Allahabad high court acquitted a person accused of committing an "unnatural offence" against his wife. "Protection of a person from marital rape continues in cases where his wife is of 18 years of age or more than that," the court said, adding that marital rape has not been criminalised in the country as yet. It sounds oxymoronic because within the purview of marriage, even the thought of rape doesn't arise because it's taken for granted that one's wife is an eternal sex slave. If the English philosopher and Nobel laureate in literature Bertrand Russell termed marriage as a 'legalised prostitution', he wasn't wide off the mark or exaggerating. Marital rape is an issue that has never been given that much importance and weightage. But that doesn't mean that it never existed in the human psyche. Vatsyayan, the high priest of sex, wrote in Kamsutra: 'Ritumati Bharya Chaiv Kadapi Na Maithunaam Asti. Iti Sambhogam Dhrashnaam Parihante' (Husband should never try to have sex with his menstruating wife. And if he does, it's tantamount to ravaging her). The guru of sex further says in the chapter 'Praak-Kreeda,' VII, that 'There're days when a woman (read wife) doesn't feel like indulging in love-making and having intercourse. Husband must refrain from having sex with her because such sex is 'forceful union'.' In other words or modern parlance, it's rape. A few years ago, a newspaper from Punjab reported that a bride left her husband in a huff when he tried to have unnatural sex with her on the very first night of conjugal intimacy. She luckily got divorce because she had the gumption to leave a rapist husband, but there're many wives who have to suffer silently and kow-tow to their husbands' never ending desires for sex at any time and occasion. IPC empowers women to file a case against husbands, who rape them or demand unnatural sex, e.g. sodomy, bondage or blind sex, from them. But hardly any woman files a case. It's time women protested and dragged such Satyr husbands to courts and taught them a lesson. Here, one social aspect does arise. In India, women are taught to be submissive to their husbands and it's hammered into their consciousness that whatever husbands do cannot be questioned. He's not just a 'Pati' (husband) but also 'Parmeshwar' (god). Wife's not supposed to question her husband's unreasonable demands for sex. She's required to be at his beck and call all the time. The problem is that this servile mentality is perpetuated by women themselves. Long ago, when Anil Dharker was the editor of Debonair, there was an account of an educated Gujarati girl, who wrote that when she told her mother that her husband wanted sex every night and she was unwilling to satisfy him at the drop of a hat, her mother told her with a sense of resignation and helplessness that it was 'Patni-Dharm' (duty of wife) because she too had to resign to her fate because her husband, the girl's father, would have sex with her whenever he wanted. Calcutta University's ' Dastidar survey,' 1998 categorically states that many men egg their wives on to have menage-a'trois (troilism or threesome), group sex and orgies. Isn't this debauchery a kind of marital rape because contrary to the general tenor, many a time, women aren't willing to experiment with other men other than their husbands? But they've to do it because it's what their kinky husbands want. And the very same husbands later resent when wives start taking interest in other partner/s! It's a veritable Catch-22 situation for women, who've to tolerate their husbands' sexual vagaries and whims. Mind you, these things often go unnoticed. As I've stated in the beginning, the sexual psyche of ancient India wasn't that skewed or lopsided as we find it today. Sage Yagyavalkaya sheltered the queen of Avantipur, when she left the palace because of her 'rapist husband'. Pre-Buddhist Ashok's first wife Nishidha left him because the emperor Ashok was an erotomaniac (refer to Dr Ramdhari Singh Dinkar's 'Sanskriti Ke Chaar Adhyay'). The late Professor and scholar of ancient History Dr Muhammad Amin conceded in one of his lectures that Muslim and English presence on the sub-continent for over a millennium, changed the sexual perceptions and undermined women of the sub-continent. In Islam, wife's a sex slave and she has to obey in bed what her husband orders. In other words, husband is the master in bedroom. A Pakistani Muslim woman wrote a few years ago, "Muslim wives are seen as sex objects to the extent that if their husbands want sex when the woman is busy looking after her child or cooking a meal for him, she has to drop everything and make herself available. There’re so many scholars saying how Islam came to liberate women and humanize them and give them high status, but not in a martial relationship. And if the wife refuses because her child is crying or the food could be burnt to ashes, the angels will curse her and the husband can threaten to divorce and marry another woman if he is not satisfied at that very moment." With this attitude came Victorian morality, that demanded that women ought not to have a say in bed. The Indian collective psyche was destroyed by the Muslims and English (I mean, English race). The erstwhile courageous women, who resisted their husbands' (violent) amorous advances became meek and timid and began to 'take their husbands' blows lying down' (literally, metaphorically and euphemistically). So, the immediate need is criminalization of marital rape under the Indian Penal Code. Mere declaration of a conduct as an offence is not enough. The real objective of criminalizing marital rape can only be achieved if the society challenges the prevailing myth that rape by spouse is not significant. Something more is required to be done for sensitizing the judiciary and police. Marital rape has to be regarded as sexual assault and Indian society cannot continue to tread on women in the guise of promoting social cohesion and protecting the sanctity of marriage (Courtesy, Criminalization of Marital Rape in India by Sumati Dhingra). ----- A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian. URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/marital-rape-sensitive/d/131305 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism