" Successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person " over the years marriage has been considered as the sacred bond and respected across the societies.
Now a days due to lack of Faith rather say interest, lack of skills to solve relationship problems, inability to understand partners needs, attitude towards intimacy, lack of time, people are prosy about eating the so-called Dal Bhat and searching for Biryani! They are moving away from marriage and start searching for new partners. this trend is running the promising of marriage in urban compared to rural areas.
For human to be able to live in a society, there must be laws to govern him. If these laws cease to exist there will be chaos. ensuring this, the supreme Court of India struck down the primitive section 497 of the Indian penal code, which had made adultery a criminal offence. The apex court rules the section 497 of the Indian penal code violated article 14 - right to equality and article 15 - prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, religion etc. In order to understand the judgement we need to understand the origin of such a law.
Indian panel code 497 give a husband the exclusive right to prosecute his wife's lover. similar right was not conferred on a wife to prosecute the woman with whom her husband has committed adultery.
Indian society has had a character of a patriarchal society. The job of women restricted to the cores of household. All the major and minor decisions of her life were taken by her father before the marriage and husband after the marriage. This predominant culture of Indian society made the woman nothing but a chattle of her husband. This very nature is reflected in section 497 of Indian panel code dealing with adultery. The decision of supreme Court to strike down section 497 made clear two things first the wife is not the property of men and second the equality before law for both the men and women. Sexuality is a something which is intrinsic and personal to every human being and no one can be compelled to establish sexual relations with anyone. Section 497 did not considered adultery as a criminal offence if the husband had his consent for her sexual affairs of his wife with other men.
Adultery, though not a criminal offence today but stands to be a civil offence. According to Chief Justice of India Deepak Mishra, adultery can be a ground for divorce and if any aggrieved spouse commits suicide because of life partners adulterous relation then if evidence produced it could be treated as an abetment to suicide.
By strucking down the practice of adultery the apex court has upheld the principle of equality. Our government are working in directions which were empowering women in all aspects of life and her future endeavour. But still there exist some practices which are hampering the growth of women in India. Such issues are marital rape, child marriage, pregnancy and child bearing occur before adolescent girls are fully developed, exposing them to great health risks.
The manner in which adultery was struck down on the ground of violation of fundamental rights, in a similar way the judiciary shall also enable a provision which shall protect women in these cases.
Adultery is not such a crime to get imprisonment. It serves as a basis of a divorce, hurts his conscience and the punishment has been given in the form of divorce will serve as punishment.
