"Marriage Not License To Unleash Brutal Beast": High Court On Marital Rape

The High Court said the "age-old thought and tradition that husbands are the rulers of their wives, their body, mind and soul should be effaced".

Marriage is no license to "unleash a brutal beast", the Karnataka High Court said today, in an order on marital rape.

"The institution of marriage does not confer, cannot confer and in my considered view, should not be construed to confer, any special male privilege or a license for unleashing of a brutal beast. If it is punishable to a man, it should be punishable to a man albeit, the man being a husband," the High Court order said.

"A brutal act of sexual assault on the wife, against her consent, albeit by the husband, cannot but be termed to be a rape. Such sexual assault by a husband on his wife will have grave consequences on the mental sheet of the wife, it has both psychological and physiological impact on her. Such acts of husbands scar the soul of the wives. It is, therefore, imperative for the law makers to now "hear the voices of silence," the order stated.