A law for marital rape

Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) defines rape as a criminal offense and states that a man commits rape if he has sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent or if she is a minor. However, according to exception 2 to Section 375 “sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.”

Thus, Indian men could rape their wives if they are older than 15.

It is absurd to have a law in which, one part protects all women from sexual violence but at the same time permits marital rape of a married woman by her husband. Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 which has been highly debated for years now, wherein a husband can, legally, demand sexual access to a spouse is more than often only used against married women. That should be enough proof to how little sexual consent women have in their marriages.

Marital rape is still a rape