Marriage Is Not Consent: Why Marital Rape Must Be Recognized as Crime

They can openly be with their spouses, and no one can gossip or interfere in their relationship. After all, why will anyone even think of that? Marriage between a Man and a Woman has been recognised globally for centuries.

Couples share happiness and sadness with each other, and learn to understand each other deeply. They do things that make their spouses smile and even express their love for each other by getting physical intimacy. In some countries like India, such intimacy is socially accepted only after marriage

While intimate sexual acts are a natural way for couples to express love and strengthen their bond, without proper consent, they can become a source of serious mental and physical harm.

However, when consent is violated, it leads to a serious issue: marital rape.

It's very simple, marital rape is any non-consensual sexual intercourse or sexual acts committed by one spouse against the other

Being married does not give someone the automatic right to have sex. Each party must give a freely given ongoing consent. And if one person forces or coerces the other into sex, it is rape.

It can happen through emotional manipulation or pressure, by threats or intimidation, by taking advantage of a person when they are asleep, intoxicated, or unable to consent and by physical force.

Marital rape is often misunderstood because many people think marriage means consent, which is false. Consent is very important even in a marriage, a healthy relationship involves mutual consent and willingness, not force.

Marital rape happens due to several reasons, such as one spouse might want power and want to dominate the other person. It sometimes happens due to the social or cultural norms where a society wrongly teaches that a spouse owes sex. And some people lack the awareness that forcing a spouse is legally as well as morally wrong.

The effects of the marital rape can be long-lasting. It can lead to emotional trauma such as depression, PTSD, or anxiety. It can even cause physical injuries or sexual health problems. It can cause distrust and difficulty in forming a safe relationship- in the future.

The effects of marital rape are mostly serious and long-lasting. Since the survivor often experiences physical injuries, depression, PTSD, loss of trust, feeling of betrayal, and long term trauma.

Since the survivor lives with the perpetrator everyday, the sense of violation is intensified, and the trauma does not end with one incident but it is repeated everyday the survivor remains in the same environment.

Marriage is not a contract of sexual access but a relationship which is built on partnership and mutual trust. The consent in a relationship is essential, and it should be ongoing, voluntary and reversible, even between spouses. The common belief of many that women's consent is permanently given after marriage, treats her as a property and reduces her autonomy.

Recognising the marital rape can reinforce the principal that no relationship can invalidate the need for consent. Since laws are the most powerful tools of shaping our society. If marital rape is recognised a crime, it'll challenge the old belief that marriage is a male dominated institution where women have no say. Instead it will encourage relationships that are built on mutual trust, consent and communication.

In many countries including India, marital rape is not recognised as a crime due to which survivors cannot file a rape case against their spouse. Instead they are left with indirect legal procedures such as filing a domestic violence complaint, cruelty charges or even divorce proceedings. They do offer some protection but they don't acknowledge or punish the sexual violence itself.
Criminalising marital rape can offer a direct legal route for justice.

However when law refuses to acknowledge marital rape as a crime, it inadvertantly empowers the abuse partner which creates a dangerous idea that a husband's sexual demands must always be fulfilled, regardless of women's wishes.

This legal void provides a cover for coercion, fear, physical violence and trapping women in abusive cycles with chances to escape.

Marital rape is not a "family matter" or a "mistake," but a crime that violates autonomy, dignity, and human rights. Meanwhile, marriage cannot and should not be used as a tool for sexual violence.

Criminalising marital rape is essential to ensure justice for survivors, promote gender equality, and uphold the fundamental principle that consent is mandatory in every relationship.