Marriage or License to Rape? A Socio-Legal Analysis of Marital Rape in India

Abstract

Rape exposes the failure of society’s institutions which were established to provide better security to an individual in a society. These institutions sometimes not only failed to protect an individual from such grave assaults on their autonomy and privacy, but also sanctioned them by either providing them legitimacy by law or not illegitimating them. States often have either provided legal sanctity to rapes within marriage or have refrained from declaring it a crime, on account of it being a private sphere not open to interference. Rape within marriage or marital rape is a global problem, and it is argued that not only it is more prevalent than rapes committed outside the purview of marriage by strangers or ex-partners, but also that it has equivalent catastrophic effects on the victims. Although several counties have criminalized marital rapes or withdrew exemptions granted to rape within marriage, the situation has hardly changed in India, which has yet to criminalize marital rape. This note henceforth will attempt to analyze the historical background of how marital rape obtained legal sanctity, its prevalence globally and in the Indian society, its effects on the victims, and the shortcomings in the legal system of India.