Marital Rape: An Impediment on Women’s Right in India

Abstract

Women in India have not yet achieved equality or are able to fully exercise their rights as a result of the patriarchal structure of the country. The marriage relationship also reflects this imbalance which is a threat to gender neutrality and gender equality which our constitution aims to achieve. In Indian culture, there are many different types of violence against wives during marriage, one such is marital rape. In the affair of marital rape, consent is irrelevant. It is excluded from the Indian Penal Code’s definition of rape in Section 375. In India, forcing a wife into sexual intimacy by a husband is therefore not illegal. Our judicial system ignores marital rape since the crime is not recognised as rape in a marriage, despite the fact that it is a severe problem that our legislature has failed to acknowledge. Marital rape has very serious repercussions that go far beyond just physical harm; they also cause emotional and psychological harm. In this paper, we will attempt to examine the idea of marital rape, how it relates to the idea of gender equality, and how it violates the constitutionally protected rights of women under the different dimensions of Art. 14, 15, 19 (1) (a) and 21.