Marital Rape: Why is it Still Decriminalised

Abstract

In India, social practices and legal provisions continue to deny women sexual agency and
autonomy over their bodies, making marital rape an unrecognised offence. The Indian Penal Code
does not consider "forced intercourse" by a husband as rape, nor is "marital rape" a grounds for
divorce under Personal Laws. This violates a woman's fundamental human rights. Marital rape is
comparable to other types of rape and should be treated similarly. Recently, the supreme court,
while dealing with the petition for criminalising marital rape, has taken a favourable step by
looking at its legal aspects and issued a notice to the central government. In fact, it is a good
gesture from the highest constitutional court of our country. It's time for the legal system to
consider rape within a marriage as a crime. In this paper, the researcher focuses on the rationale
for excluding criminalising ‘marital rape’ as an offence.