"#MarriageStrike is the massive protest against #falsecases on men and rotten judiciary's eagerness to allow women to make false complaints of #MaritalRape," a man from the handle @mulchandani007 tweeted.
The hashtag #MarriageStrike has over 57,500 tweets, mainly from cisgender Indian males, demanding marital rape to not be recognised and criminalised in the country.
The term is seen as a movement by cisgender heterosexual males objecting to marriage, for fear of financial ruin from subsequent divorce and false cases.
Last week, the Delhi high court while hearing a batch of petitions on marital rape, asked "can a wife be put on a lower pedestal or be less empowered than a sex worker who has the right to say no at any stage?"
The court's remarks came when it pointed out that to exclude ¡°certain circumstances¡± from the ambit of rape ¡°because of inter-party relationship¡± is problematic and that marital rape exception could be examined in the light of protection granted to sex workers in rape law.
¡°According to me, you (the amicus curiae) gave a good example of a sex worker. If you were to look into circumstances, what better defence than to say that this is a person who is used to entertaining people¡she should have also been in the exception¡we have chosen not to do it. Our courts have gone as far as saying she can say no at any stage. Can a wife be put on a lower pedestal? Be lesser empowered in law?¡± Justice Shakdher questioned.
Justice Shankar opined that the expectation of sex in the case of a marital relationship was not the same as in the instance of a sex worker.
Senior advocate Raj Shekhar Rao, who is appointed as an amicus curiae to assist the court, argued that husband and wife are ¡°two equals before the law¡± and there is no reason ¡°why husband's desire to have sex trump the wife's desire not to¡±.
The amicus said that the foundation of section 375 was the lack of consent and there was no reason to give lessor protection against non-consensual intercourse to a married woman.
He thus argued that the marital rape exception in law was arbitrary and violated article 14 and article 21 of the Constitution of India.
While there has been a growing chorus to criminalise marital rape, some people believe that there is no such thing as marital rape and that it's a ploy by feminists to destabilise the foundations of Hindu marriage and the institution of marriage.
Some also see #MarriageStrike as the "only solution to collapse the feminist agenda."
Marriage is not consent. Marriage is a social and legal contract.
Millions of Indian men understand marriage as a lifelong license to sex. But what they fail to understand is that marriage, by no means, is a blanket consent to sex but merely a social and legal contract.
Last year, the Delhi high court observed that marriage does not imply blanket consent for physical relations from a wife, and that rape does not necessarily constitute the use of physical force.?
In a marriage, both husband and wife, have the right and the liberty to say no to sex when they wish.
To quote the Delhi High Court Bench, ¡°Marriage does not mean that the woman is all time, ready, willing and consenting (for establishing physical relations). The man will have to prove that she was a consenting party.¡± The court added, ¡°It is incorrect to say that (physical) force is necessary for rape. It is not necessary to look for injuries in a rape. Today, the definition of rape is completely different.¡±
India is one of the few countries, in the world where marital rape isn't a crime, where the concept of consent for sex seems to be a blanket one, irrespective of the mental state of mind or physical health, when one gets married.
The key issue is that men still do not recognise consent and fail to understand it as a concept that defines a respectful relationship between a husband and a wife.
Among the earliest cases of marital rape, one is from 1889, where Phulmani Dasi, a 10-year-old child bride died because her 35-year-old husband raped her. And cited his right to have sex with his wife according to the contract of marriage.
This case is well over a century old, but still the foundations of consent remain unclear in a marriage.
The hashtag is a glaring reminder that men still consider women as their property after marriage and that the woman has no right to say no to her husband when it comes to sex, because of non-existent implied consent at the time of marriage.
Indian men rather not marry than understand consent and respect their wives.
Marital rape is not restricted to a specific religion, caste or class. It's about asserting male domination within the household and it circumferences
Back in 2012, Karnataka HC passed a judgment on the same and said that "The husband can't be made to suffer for no fault of his and be deprived of his natural urge to enjoy sexual happiness if the wife is unwilling to share the bed and discharge her duties."
In 2019, the former Chief Justice of India, while talking about marital rape gave his reason for not supporting the idea of criminalising marital rape - "Because it will create absolute anarchy in families and our country is sustaining itself because of the family platform which upholds family values."
The ex-CJI implied that while the family is the most important aspect of Indian society, women's sexual subjugation is the most crucial aspect of Indian families.
Marital rape not only shreds human dignity, but it also violates a woman's right to privacy. It's time that we give women equality in the truest sense of the term.?
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