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2 NSLJ (2013) 15

‘Bride’ and Prejudice — Marital Rape and the Indian Legal Dilemma

‘BRIDE’ AND PREJUDICE — MARITAL RAPE AND THE INDIAN LEGAL DILEMMA
by
Anvesha Kumar* and Ipsita Mazumdar**
INTRODUCTION
And they lived happily ever after. Most of the young girls are seen enticed by this
ideal happy-ending to a love story that is read out to them from fairy-tales by their
mothers. The others probably catch this idea from the movies and the songs, which
promise them a life full of romance and an outburst of love in the air. Some fortunate
girls have it this way, with probably a few quarrels and fights in between. The others
are not so lucky and unfortunately, the proportion of women falling in this category is
alarmingly high. Apart from being victims of physical abuse, mental harassments and
increasing dowry demands, some women also fall prey to the less talked about
brutality of marital rape.
“The dictionary meaning of the word ‘rape’ is ravishing or violation of a woman”.1
The word ‘rape’ is legally defined under Section 375(1) of the Indian Penal Code,
1980. Justice Krishna Iyer has observed in a very famous case of Rafiq v. State2 that a
murderer kills the body but the rapist kills the soul. Marital rape refers to
unwanted intercourse by a man with his wife obtained by force, threat of force, or
physical violence, or when she is unable to give consent. It is a non-consensual act of
violent perversion by a husband against the wife where she is physically and sexually
abused.3

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Once a woman gets married, she is believed to be her husband's property, and their
marriage certificate serves as an entitlement for her husband to have sex according to
his whims and fancies. Since the husband thinks that wife is his property, he
repeatedly rapes her without her consent to reinforce his power, and establish his
dominance over her. A husband uses sex both for attaining pleasure and for
reprimanding his wife.
A woman in India has no legal recourse if she is raped by her husband. The Penal
Code, 1860 does not have effective provision for tackling the problems of marital rape.
Not only is marital rape absent as a crime in our Indian legislation, it does not exist as
one in our imagination either. People in India have a misleading and trivialized view of
this crime. They are prejudiced with the notion that the woman should meet the
sexual requirement of his husband wherever and whenever he demands for it. This has
also been influenced by religious interpretation. And because of this reason women are
compelled to have sexual relations with their husbands against their will. In marital
rape there is no real proof of rape because of absence of any bruise or resistance.
Women can also be forced by verbal coercion, the use of menacing and verbal pressure
or misuse of authority. With no bruises or violence rape are difficult to prove.
TRACING THE LAW — THE INDIAN SCENARIO IN CONTEXT OF IPC
Phulmonee Dassee, born on March 2, 1879 and married on May 11, 1890. She was
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hardly of 11 years when she died on the bed of her husband due to bleeding caused
by a ruptured vagina. Her husband Hurree Mohun was charged under sections 304,
304A, 325 and 338 IPC. This case was heard by a single judge bench of the
Calcutta High Court in its original jurisdiction. Even the medical evidences as given
by the surgeon showed that she died due to excessive bleeding caused by a
ruptured vagina.4
At the end of the trial, the judge inter alia said, ‘it by no means follows that
because the law of rape does not apply between husband and wife if the wife has
attained the age of 10 years, that the law regards a wife over ten years of a age as
a thing made over to her husband, or as a person outside the protection of law’.

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The jury found him guilty only under section 388 IPC for causing grievous hurt by
doing an act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or personal safety of
another, and subsequently he was sentenced for just one year of imprisonment for
causing the death of his minor wife in most shameful and ghastly manner because
the law of rape was no applicable to a woman who has attained the age of 10 years.
This case led to a public outcry, and the government was made amend the law,
increasing the age limit to 12 in 1891. It was further increased to 13 in 1925 and to
15 in 1949. At present the age for giving valid consent for sexual intercourse by a
women is 16 years and in case of husband, he can have sexual intercourse with his
own wife if she has completed 15 years as section 375 ipc provides that sexual
intercourse by man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not
rape.5
It is pertinent to point out that in 1949 the minimum age for a girl's marriage, as
per the child marriage (restraint) act, 1929, was 15 years and in 1978 it was increased
to 18 years.6 But, while increasing the age for marriage of girls from 15 to 18 years in
1978, the age for giving consent by a woman for sexual intercourse was not increased
from 16 years and the age of wife for the purpose of exception under section 375 was
also not increased from 15 years.
The Penal Code, 1860 has two provisions for marital rape. According to chapter XVI
section 375, it is rape if the wife is under fifteen years of age, regardless of consent.
Also, according to section 376 A, if a husband has forced sexual intercourse with his
wife who is living separately from him under a court decree of separation or custom,
then he is liable for the offence of rape, and can be legally punished by fine or
imprisonment. Yet, there is no provision for legal justice for an adult wife who is raped
by her live-in-husband.

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The present law reflects the stereotypical mindset of the people who presume a
woman to be the property of his husband and henceforth they don't even recognize
rape or sexual abuse by their husband as a criminal offence. The mutual rights that a
couple has on each other are based on misguided, distorted and misogynist
assumptions. From the limited provision of Penal Code, 1860 it may be assumed that
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the wife availing shelter, food and other means of sustenance in her husband's
household, is seen as already compensated for any kind of sexual wrong done on to
her, and hence expected to automatically forfeit any right to complaint.
‘MARRIAGE’ AND THE SOCIETY — IS THE INDIAN LEGAL SYSTEM BASED ON SOCIAL NORMS
AND STIGMAS?
She's strong! and scary…I bet she's single…I'd put money on it…
— Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 18: Tsunade's Choice
It is amusing how a light-hearted statement from a renowned book can contain a
store-house of brutal truth. ‘Strong’ and ‘scary’ can only be linked to a single woman,
and never to a married one. Ironically, a woman, once married, is ideologically
considered to be a completely inferior species, inferior to male, having no significance,
no personality socially except that which she carries through her husband. She is kept
as a subject, whose duty is just to oblige, and not to object. For centuries now, the
concept of marriage has been associated with traditional concepts and beliefs where a
woman's ambitions, hopes and desires for her own self are cut-short and modified in
order to suit and accommodate those of her husband, children and family. Betty
Friedan, author of Feminine Mystique and one of the key founders of the National
Organization for Women in the United States, showed her disdain for the God-given of
men and women in marriage when she said, “if divorce has increased by one thousand
percent, don't blame the women's movement, blame the obsolete sex roles on which
are marriages based.”7
Judicially, the blind eye to marital rapes can be traced back to statements by Sir
Mathew Hale, Chief Justice in England, during the 1600s, when he wrote that a
husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by
their mutual matrimonial consent and

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contract, the wife hath given herself in kind unto the husband, whom she cannot
retract.8 Such was the view which was, and sadly still is, followed by the societal,
legislative and judicial decision-making around the world. Not surprisingly thus,
married women are generally not the subject of rape laws. In December 1993, the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published the Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence Against Women. This established marital rape as a human
rights violation in most parts of the world. Unfortunately, even though marital rape can
be prosecuted in many countries like Austria, Belarus, Bhutan, Mexico, Nepal, etc., in
India, what is called spousal rape remains ambivalent in people's mind, and is widely
tolerated and accepted as a husband's prerogative. Since India largely believes in the
concept of arranged marriage, marital rape becomes an eventuality of that. Just a leap
away from the urban quarters, the bulk of the girls in the rural, under-developed parts
of the world are brought up under parental guidance which suggests they have to be
at the receiving end of the most obvious consequence of marriage — sexual
intercourse and the satisfaction of the senses without bringing it out as a topic of
discussion, ignoring the brutality committed by their own husbands, thinking in
disdain that “perhaps this is the sex mother told me about”.

STRIKING THE BALANCE — WHERE DOES THE CONJUGAL RIGHT (OF SEXUAL
INTERCOURSE) END?
With reference to a corresponding provision in the 5th and 14th amendments of the
U.S. Constitution, which says that no person shall be deprived of his “life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law”, in Munn v. Illinois9 , Field, J. spoke of the right
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to life in the following words: “By the term ‘life’ as here used something more is
meant than mere animal existence.” This statement has been repeatedly quoted with
approval by our Supreme Court.10 In the case of Francis Coralie Mullin v. Union
Territory of Delhi11 , Bhagwati, J. held : “We think that the right to life includes the
right to live with human dignity and all that goes beyond with it.” Marital rape is a
stab on a woman's dignity. Sexual coercion with an unwilling partner constitutes the
grossest form of violation of individual's right to privacy and offends the integrity

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of such person, hence calling for the violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
It undoubtedly qualifies as being not only against right to life, but also against
personal liberty which has a wide ambit, and going with its literal interpretation, every
married woman has a right to make her choice. She has a personal liberty to decide
whether to indulge in sexual intercourse with her husband or not. Her husband by no
means can coerce her to indulge in sexual intercourse. This brings us to the question
as to where does the conjugal right of a husband ends and the fundamental right to
life of the wife begin? The Oxford English Dictionary12 defines conjugal rights as the
rights, especially to sexual relations, regarded as exercisable in law by each partner in
a marriage. In Harvender Kaur v. Harmander Singh Choudhry13 , the court held that
though right to physical interaction is a part of the conjugal rights that come parceled
with marriage, it is not the only thing that defines it. It was held that the court has
neither the means nor the capacity to enforce its decree in the marriage bed. The court
also held that if the husband and the wife are cohabiting together but the wife is not
allowing the husband to have a sexual relationship with her, then the court cannot
pass a decree of restitution of conjugal rights in favor of the husband. Going by this
case, it seems clear that though conjugal rights include a right to sexual intercourse, it
is not judicially enforceable against an unwilling partner, but it nevertheless is an
important part of conjugal rights in a matrimonial tie which means that consent to
intercourse is implied and the husband would not by default face penal consequences
if he indulges in sexual intercourse with his wife. It wouldn't be called a rape.
However, if the same sexual intercourse happened without the consent of the wife,
would it still not be called rape? This question has still not been answered by the
court. On one hand, the court is not giving the husband a legal weapon to have sexual
interaction with his wife through the restitution of conjugal rights and on the other
hand, if the husband uses coercion to have that interaction, the wife will not be able to
take recourse under S. 375, Penal Code, 1860 since the exception says that sexual
interaction between husband and wife, even without consent, does not constitute rape.
The court infact tried to play it judicially safe in this case by observing that the courts
cannot question the wisdom of the legislation. There is, therefore, a dire need of
legislative clarity in this area. Also, the court did not hesitate to opine that the
introduction of constitutional law in the home is most inappropriate. It is like
introducing a bull in a china

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shop.14 Neither Article 21 nor Article 14 had any place in the privacy of the home. In a
sensitive sphere which is at once most intimate and delicate the introduction of the
cold principles of constitutional law will have the effect of weakening the marriage
bond. However, what the court failed to see was that if the wife herself has decided
that her constitutional right of life and personal liberty as well as her human rights
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have been cold-shouldered to such extent that they now need immediate restoration,
then there must be compelling reasons for enforcement of constitutional law in the
domestic quarters of a matrimonial relationship, and as far as the fundamental rights
are concerned, especially the right of Article 21, it goes unsaid that it is the most
sacrosanct of all the rights. Article 21 can also be invoked against private persons. Its
language is not restricted to state action. It should be given the widest possible
interpretation.15 In the case of State of Maharashtra v. Madhukar Narayan Mardikar16 ,
the Supreme Court held that even a woman of easy virtue is entitled to privacy and no
one can invade her privacy as and when one likes. There is no justified interference
with the women's liberty once she is married. Does a woman, once married, cease to
hold the position of a dignified citizen, who cannot even take a legal action against
rape, even if committed by her own husband? Does the act by the husband himself
not make it even more horrifying, much less not even legally enforceable? Do women,
once married, cease to be treated at par with other women, that there is no recourse
even under Article 14 of the Constitution of India? The introduction of constitutional
terms in personal law is imperative to give utmost importance to the sexual
inviolability of a wife.

ARTICLE 14 — ARE MARRIED WOMEN NOT EQUALS?

To the women, God said, ‘Your desire will be for you husband, and he will rule over
you.’17
Blatantly put, the exception to rape under Section 375 of the Penal Code, 1860
contravenes Article 14 of the Constitution of India18 as it is arbitrary, unfair and
fraught with outright discrimination. Article 14 embodies the principle of equality and
acts as a shield against

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discrimination and prohibits discriminatory laws. Accordingly, to apply the principle of

equality in practicality, the courts have evolved the test that if the law in question is
based on rational or reasonable classification, it is not regarded as discriminatory.19
Now, classification to be reasonable should fulfill two tests.20 Firstly, it should be based
on an intelligible differentia, some real and substantial distinction, which distinguishes
persons or things grouped together in the class from others left out of it, and secondly,
the differentia adopted as the basis of classification must have a rational or reasonable
nexus with the object sought to be achieved by the statute in question.

Now, considering the first test for reasonableness, there is no trace of real and
substantial distinction between a married woman and the un-married ones. The only
difference is the one made by the societal norms and psychological barriers. Even if
the woman overcomes her own psychological barriers and tries to raise her voice
against the crime, little would be the help that she would get from the society. Social
commentators argue that the patriarchal nature of society often made it difficult to
enforce legal provisions against marital rape. Most women are economically
disempowered and dependant on their husbands for survival, which discourages them
from reporting cases of marital rape. However much the society tries to ignore it, but a
man is accepted to be not as much a lover of marriage as a slave of lust, and that is
acceptable. Ironically, though. What the society fails to understand is that there can
be rape within the marriage. It is time these women are given the respect and the
protection that is adequately desired from a democratic republic like India where
axioms like secularism, democracy, reasonableness, social justice, etc. are over-
arching principles providing linking factor for the principle of fundamental rights like
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Art. 14 and 21.21 It is time Article 14 of the Constitution gets its true interpretation
when it comes to equality before law and equal protection of laws. It is time. Indeed.
“PROVE THAT I RAPED MY WIFE” — ADMISSIBILITY AND PROOF OF MARITAL RAPE

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In simple and straight terms, women often lose their cases in court because of
insufficient evidence. Also, the judges and justice auxiliaries are products of the
society and their views of violence against women are likely to be coloured
perspectives that are sometimes unfavorable to women.
Section 122 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 prevents communication during
marriage from being disclosed in court except when one married partner is being
prosecuted for an offence against the other. Now, since marital rape itself is not an
offence, the evidence is inadmissible, unless is it a prosecution for cruelty under the
Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
Now, even considering that marital rape becomes a subject of legislation and the
wife is legally allowed to bring in an action of rape against her husband, there are
chances for the effort of the wife to go in vain, as proving marital rape cases would
come with the same burden as that of non-marital rape cases, i.e., sexual intercourse
without consent given. As per Sir William Scott22 , the essence of matrimony is
consent. Consent to matrimony presupposes consent to sexual intercourse. It is very
difficult, to say the least, to prove and define where the consent of the wife
extinguishes and hence rape begins. A wife can grudgingly have sex with her husband
without the use of force or threat on his part. In such a situation, the woman cannot
claim that she was raped. Consent is consent whether given grudgingly or not. If the
woman tells her husband that she does not wish to indulge in a sexual intercourse
with him at the moment but eventually yields to his advances, she cannot later accuse
her husband of sexual rape or abuse.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS - JUSTICE VERMA COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS ON MARITAL
RAPE
The brutal gang rape in Delhi on December 16, 2012 led to the promptitude
establishment of the Justice Verma Committee which recommended amendments to
criminal laws. It has laid out a comprehensive roadmap for women's constitutional
equality and has even sought “an exception for the definition of marital rape in the
existing laws.” They said that the relationship between

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the accused and the complainant is not relevant to the enquiry into whether the
complainant consented to the sexual activity and the fact that the accused and the
victim are married or in another intimate relationship may not be regarded as a
mitigating factor justifying lower sentences for rape.

The Verma Committee Report points out that, a 2010 study suggests that 18.8 per
cent of women are raped by their partners on one or more occasion.
The legal prohibition on marital rape should be accompanied by changes in the
attitudes of prosecutors, police officers and those in society more generally. Changes
in the law, therefore, need to be accompanied by widespread measures raining
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awareness of women's rights to autonomy and physical integrity, regardless of
marriage or other intimate relationship. Need for the appropriate training for judges,
lawyers, law enforcement officers and medical personnel in understanding crimes of
rape and other sexual offences in a gender-sensitive manner. The Verma panel
recommended criminalization of marital rape but the ordinance rejected it.
INTERNATIONAL SCENARIO
The researchers in United States have estimated that 10% to 14% of women
experience rape in marriage.23 When researchers examined the prevalence of different
types of rape, they found that marital rape accounts for approximately 25% of all
rapes.24 But despite the prevalence of marital rape, this problem has hardly received
any pertinent attention from social scientists, practitioners, the criminal justice
system, and larger society as a whole.
Until 1976, marital rape was legal in every state in the United States. But with the
advent of social upliftment and judicial interpretation by 1993, marital rape became a
crime in all fifty States, under at least one section of the sexual offence codes.
However, it is remarkable that only

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a minority of the States has abolished the marital rape exemption in its entirety, and
that it remains in some proportion or other in all the rest. In most American States,
resistance requirements still apply.25 In seventeen States and the District of Columbia,
there are no exemptions from rape prosecution granted to husbands. However, in
thirty-three States, there are still some exemptions given to husbands from rape
prosecution.26 The existence of some spousal exemptions in the majority of States
indicates that rape in marriage is still treated as a lesser crime than other forms of
rape.

Earlier in England, as a general rule, a man could not have been held to be guilty as
a principal of rape upon his wife, for the wife is in general unable to retract the
consent to sexual intercourse, which is a part of the contract of marriage.27 However,
by 1991 the exemption of marital rape was abolished in entirety. The House of Lords
held in R. v. R28 that the rule that a husband could not be guilty of raping his wife if he
forced her to have sexual intercourse against her will was an anachronistic and
offensive common-law fiction, which no longer represented the position of a wife in
present-day society, and that it should no longer be applied. Corresponding
amendment to the statutory law was made through Section 147 of the Criminal Justice
and Public Order Act, 1994.
In Mexico, the country's Congress ratified a bill that makes domestic violence
punishable by law. If convicted, marital rapists could be imprisoned for 16 years. In
Sri Lanka, recent amendments to the Penal Code recognize marital rape. Many
countries have begun to legislate against marital rape, refusing to accept the marital
relationship as a cover for violence in the home. For example, the Government of
Cyprus, in its contribution to the Special Rapporteur, clarifies that “rape is rape
irrespective of whether it is committed within or outside marriage”.29

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Taking about the Indian context, India is signatory member of The “United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women” (CEDAW). Under this it has viewed that this sort of discrimination against
women violates the principles of equality of rights and respect for human dignity.
Further, the Commission on Human Rights, at its fifty-first session, in its Resolution
No. 1995/85 of 8-3-1995 entitled “The elimination of violence against women”
recommended that marital rape should be criminalized.30
Additionally, marital rape is a crime under international law according to the UN
General Assembly.31 Recognizing that violence against women is a manifestation of
historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to
domination over and discrimination against women by men, the UN General Assembly
affirmed under the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, 1993
that violence against women constitutes a violation of therights and fundamental
freedoms of women and impairs or nullifies theirenjoyment of rights and freedoms,
and concerned about the long-standingfailure to protect and promote those rights and
freedoms in the case ofviolence against women.32
CONCLUSION
Why does the crane stand on one leg? Because if it lifted this leg also, it would fall.
Why does burden of marriage fall only on woman? Because if she did not bear the
burden, the institution of marriage would break down.
˜Kamla Bhasin, “The Riddle of Marriage.”
The institution of Marriage does not thrive on sex alone and the fear of frivolous
litigation should not stop protection from being offered to the women who are caught
in abusive traps, where they are denigrated to the status of chattel. Apart from judicial
awakening, we primarily require generation of awareness and for that we need to
educate the masses about this crime, as the real

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objective of criminalizing marital rape can only be achieved if the society

acknowledges and challenges the prevailing myth that rape by one's spouse is
inconsequential. When it comes to marital rape, women are often themselves confused
whether they have been raped or not. It is rape when done by a stranger on the
street, but the same is acceptable when it is done by the husband. This is partly due
to the cultural belief that is rooted in women's minds that submitting to their husband
is a sign of a dutiful wife. More awareness, especially amongst dwellers of rural areas,
about what comprises an acceptable sexual indulgence and when does the same fall
under forced sex and harassment will help to bring in more marital rape instance
under the scanner of the judiciary. There is also the need for substantial changes in
the law on sexual offences such as making them gender-neutral and eliminating the
inequalities. The immediate need is criminalization of marital rape under the Penal
Code, 1860. Marital rape should be recognized by Parliament as an offence under the
Penal Code, 1860 and the punishment for it should be the same as the one prescribed
for rape under Section 376 of the Penal Code, 1860. The mere fact that the parties are
married should not make the punishment trivial. Arrest alone may not constitute a
strong societal response. Lengthy prison sentences have some behaviour-altering
deterrent values. Many well-known jurists and public men have advocated capital
punishment for the criminals who commit rape as it is an offence worse than murder
so far as its impact is concerned. Still there is need for amending the anomaly related
to the age of consent, and of wife in accordance with the Marriage Act in India. To
elaborate, as per the Child Marriage (Restraint) Act, 1929, the minimum age for a girl
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to get married is 18 years. However, while increasing the age for marriage of girls from
15 to 18 years in 1978, the age for giving consent by a woman for sexual intercourse
was not increased from 16 years and the age of wife for the purpose of exception
under section 375 was also not increased from 15 years. There is an urgent need of
judicial scrutiny in this matter in order to resolve this anomaly, for the betterment of
the weaker sex. However, fixing the law is not the only solution, as even though the
laws of the society can be changed, but the mindset cant. The law might be
adequately altered to bring in the concept of marital rape as a punishable offence, but
the enforcement of the same will still remain a faux pas which will immediately bring
the complaining victims under social scrutiny and ridicule. Hence, what is majorly
needed is a behavioral and societal-opinion change in order to make sure that the law
is sincerely implemented and enforced, and does not only remain in the black and
white. What is needed is an opinion revolution, to replace the old picture of the father
on top and the

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mother barefoot and pregnant, with a new one where both are equal. What is also
needed is a change in the mindset of some males that sexual intercourse is something
that is their right which, is not given as per their desires and wishes, can be obtained
by fists and knives. This in itself requires the cooperation from the society at large,
and an understanding that the fight for justice by female or cry for gender equality is
not a fight against men. It is fight against traditions that have chained them, a fight
against the attitude that is ingrained in the society. Men must rise to the occasion.
They must recognize and accept the fact that women are equal partners in life. They
are individuals who have their own identity33 and what is need is their protection and
upliftment, to lift them up from the shackles of judicial apathy and place them one-on-
one with the men, they are taught to fear. This is an endeavor not only for the right of
a female, but for the right of a human. The fight here is more for the natural, basic,
human right and, as correctly pointed by Krishna Iyer, J., “The fight is not for a
woman's status but for human worth. The claim is not to end inequality of women but
to restore universal justice. The bid is not for loaves and fishes for the forsaken gender
but for cosmic harmony which never comes till woman comes.”34

———
* BA LLB (Hons), III Yr, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow.
** BA LLB (Hons), III Yr, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow.
1
Rape laws in India, available at <http://www.legalindia.in/rape-laws-in-india>.
2
(1980) 4 SCC 262 : 1980 Cri LJ 1344 (SC).
3 Marital Rape and the Indian Legal Scenario, available at
<http://www.indialawjournal.com/volume2/issue_2/article_by_priyanka.html>.
4
Queen-Empress v. Hurree Mohun Mythee, ILR (1891) 18 Cal 49.
5 Dhagamwar, Vasudha, Law, Power and Justice 255-56.
6 Dhagamwar, op cit, 256; Section 1 of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act (Act X of 1891); Section 2 of the
Amending Act (Act XXIX of 1925); Section 3 of the Amending Act (XLII of 1949) Gour, Dr. Hari Singh, Penal Law
of India 3608, (11th Edn.).
7
Betty Friedan Quotes, available at <http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/betty_friedan.htm>.
8 1 Hale, History of the Pleas of the Crown 629 (1778).
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9 24 L Ed 77 : 94 US 113 (1876).
10
Kharak Singh v. State of U.P., AIR 1963 SC 1295; Sunil Batra v. Delhi Admn., (1978) 4 SCC 494.
11
(1981) 1 SCC 608 : AIR 1981 SC 746.
12 The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press (11th Edn.,).
13
AIR 1984 Del 66.
14 Harvender Kaur v. Harmander Singh Choudhry, AIR 1984 Del 66.
15
M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, (1987) 1 SCC 395.
16
(1991) 1 SCC 57 : AIR 1991 SC 207.
17 The Bible, Genesis, 3.16.
18
Art. 14. Equality before law —The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal
protection of the laws within the territory of India.
19
Ashutosh Gupta v. State of Rajasthan, (2002) 4 SCC 34; M.P. JAIN, Indian Constitutional Law, Lexis Nexis
Butterworths Wadhwa, Nagpur (6th Edn., 2008).
20Laxmi Khandsari v. State of U.P., (1981) 2 SCC 600 : AIR (1981) SC 873, 891; Javed v. State of Haryana,
(2003) 8 SCC 369 : AIR (2003) SC 3057; M.P. Jain, Indian Constitutional Law, Lexis Nexis Butterworths Wadhwa,
Nagpur (6th Edn., 2008).
21 I.R. Coelho v. State of T.N., (2007) 2 SCC 1 : AIR 2007 SC 861.
22 Linda v. Belisario, (1795) 1 Hag Con 216 (21).

23Raquel Kennedy Bergen, Marital Rape, March 1999 available at <http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Marital%

20Rape.pdf>.
24 National Violence Against Women Survey, NCJ 172837, Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.
25 Schulhofer, S.J., Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law 30 (Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, 1998).
26 Crisis Connection, US History of Marital Rape, available at
<http://www.crisisconnectioninc.org/pdf/US_History_of_Marital_Rape.pdf>.
27 Halsbury's Laws of England 495, (4th Edn., Vol. 11).
28 (1992) 1 AC 599 : (1991) 3 WLR 767 : (1991) 4 All ER 481 (HL).

29 Marital Rape — Myth, Reality and Need for Criminalization, available at <http://www.ebc-
india.com/lawyer/articles/645.htm>.
30 Marital Rape — Myth, Reality and Need for Criminalisation, available at <http://www.ebc-
india.com/lawyer/articles/645.htm>.
31
United Nations General Assembly, 23rd Special Session, 26-11-2000 available at
<http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/followup/ress233e.pdf>.

32United Nations General Assembly, Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, 20-12-1993
available at <http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/48/a48r104.htm>.
33 A.S. Anand C.J., Justice for Women, Universal Law Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. (2nd Edn., 2003).
34 V.R.K. Iyer, Law and Life 31, Vikas Publishing House (1979).

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