Thursday, November 13, 2014

Rape on the pre-text of marriage?

When a mature woman, perusing a research degree in a premiere think-tank institution, accuses another colleague of “rape on the pretext of marriage” , what does one make of it? Even if it was consensual at the time, if the relationship falls apart, it becomes Rape? If marriage was conditional to furthering the relationship, they could have waited until after, no? And now law of the land must intervene, how? If it decrees that they have to marry, can they live happily ever after? Punishing the guy will restore what, exactly? In the movies of sixties, the baddie “outraged the modesty “ of the heroe’s sis, took away her saree , dupatta etc. and tied her up to a chair, a pole, whatever was handy . Then the hero entered with his jacket-that he never left home without especially when in pursuit of villains, thrashed the guy and draped his sis in the jacket (Farah-Sajid, in your remakes you might consider woman -in - a -skirt that’s ripped to show off her legs, cleverly getting past the Censor Board, and the hero can give her his pants, and show off some muscle too—but I digress). Then they cut to the baddie , kajal-ketchup all washed off, in a brand new jacket of his own, stopped even as he is falling at the women’s feet ( the sister and mother if she’s around) and garlanded, as in marriage. We never find out if the baddie really changed his ways and did not hound other women, and how they planned to tackle the issue of bigamy that would crop up then. The point being, if we agree that Rape is a reprehensible social aberration and a serious crime under law, then, having to marry the rapist is double punishment, right? So coming back to our research scholar, what did she want? I have often wondered what this clause “rape on the pretext of marriage “ really entails . Educate me, please.

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