IF CRIMINALIZING A CRIME DESTROYS MARRIAGES, THEN IS THE HUSBAND A CRIMINAL: MARITAL RAPE AND THE UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP OF MARRIED WOMEN IN INDIA
AUTHOR – SAMIKSHAA, STUDENT AT PRESIDENCY UNIVERSITY, BANGALORE
BEST CITATION – SAMIKSHAA, IF CRIMINALIZING A CRIME DESTROYS MARRIAGES, THEN IS THE HUSBAND A CRIMINAL: MARITAL RAPE AND THE UNEQUAL CITIZENSHIP OF MARRIED WOMEN IN INDIA, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 6 (9) OF 2026, PG. 957-967, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344. DOI – https://doi.org/10.65393/IJLRV6I9100
ABSTRACT
A woman does not cease to be a human being when she becomes a wife. Yet the debate surrounding marital rape in India continues to be shaped by a deeply patriarchal assumption that marriage grants husbands a form of sexual entitlement over their wives. A woman’s refusal is respected when it is directed at a stranger, questioned when it is directed at a partner, and too often dismissed when it is directed at a husband. In this hierarchy, consent does not disappear by accident. It disappears because society has long been more comfortable protecting marriage than protecting women within it.
This article argues that the continued refusal to recognise marital rape is not merely a gap in criminal law but a reflection of a larger social belief that a wife’s body is part of her marital obligations. Women are told that marriage requires compromise, adjustment, sacrifice, and service. Rarely are they told that these expectations stop where their bodily autonomy begins. The expectation of the “good wife” continues to coexist with the expectation that a husband is entitled to sex, even when consent is absent.
Through a feminist constitutional analysis, this article examines how the marital rape exception undermines the principles of equality, dignity, and personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. It questions why the law fears the consequences of criminalising violence more than the consequences of permitting it. If recognising a crime is believed to threaten marriage, then the problem is not the law’s intervention but the conduct being protected from it. A wife is not property. Her body is not a marital entitlement. And constitutional rights cannot be left outside the bedroom door.
Keywords: Marital Rape, Consent, Feminist Jurisprudence, Constitutional Morality, Bodily Autonomy, Marriage, Equality, Women’s Rights.