Should “Cheating” a Woman Be a Crime?

Rape is a very serious crime. But is it rape when a man backs off from his promise to marry a woman? I don’t think so. Rape is a very specific crime – sex without consent or with invalid consent. Anything else is consensual regardless of the circumstances. If a woman has sex with a man based on his promise of marriage, that is her choice. She should know that a verbal promise is not legally binding and all actions premised on that can backfire. We are talking about grown adult women after all – not minors.

Courts are beginning to see the sense of this and are uniformly acquitting men on the charge of rape in such situations. But what remains is the charge of “cheating”. In the linked case, the man got 5 years for “cheating” a woman by promising to marry her and then leaving! I think that’s ridiculous.

If a guy pretends to share a girl’s interests and sleeps with her, do we take him to court for “cheating”?

What is this “cheating” nonsense? An adult woman didn’t know that a “promise to marriage” is not binding? She should take responsibility for her choices and live with them. This is a symptom of India’s tendency to view a woman as “spoiled” if she has intercourse. We have to stop viewing sex as something “given in exchange for marriage”. If we were sensible, we’d see that nothing earth shattering has happened. The woman had consensual sex, she’s still healthy, has suffered no violence, and no indignity.

Notice how the woman isn’t upset that he refused to marry her. She’s upset because they had sex and then he refused to marry her. If he’d simply broken his “promise” without having sex, neither would she have gone to court, and neither would the court have sentenced him. This clearly shows the broken way in which we view sex in India. As something to be traded. As something a woman “agrees to” in order to “trap men into marriage”. The entire concept of marriage then becomes nothing but glorified prostitution.

The word “cheating” is employed when there is a victim who has actually lost something. Who has suffered something. But in this case, what has the woman “lost”? Somehow Indian society has managed to convince even the judges that a woman’s worth is lessened by sex. It’s an abomination, and something that the Supreme Court should step in and correct.

Let’s be clear on one thing – all of us misrepresent ourselves in some way or the other when dealing with people. Even using a deodorant is a sign that you’re trying to cover up your stinky armpits. Shall we start taking people to court for “misrepresenting” their body odor? Or let’s say that a guy pretends to share a girl’s interests to make her like him. They have sex and later she finds out that he actually doesn’t give a crap about Honey Boo Boo. Are we to believe that a court can put the guy away for 5 years now on the charge of “cheating”?

It’s high time we stopped defining a woman’s value by whether or not she’s had sex. The court should say to the woman in the linked article “You know what? We don’t care if you two had sex. You haven’t suffered by it and you’re back where you started. Get over it, pick yourself up and move on. We’re not here to protect you from yourself!”

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28 thoughts on “Should “Cheating” a Woman Be a Crime?”

  1. But what if the guy is cheating with every girl first showing all dreams n after that have sex and then another girl…. like already he cheated 3 girls sexually also now going to destroy another girl’s life? Is there any law against that ? And if we report does the all victims name will be enclosed?

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    • In reply to maya

      The fact that we view it as “destroying a girl’s life” itself shows inherent unfair sexism. Why should a girl’s life be “destroyed” just because she has sex? Why is the boy’s life not “destroyed” if he has sex?

      The law should not endorse these regressive views of a woman where her worth is dependent on her virginity. She had sex – so what? Nothing happens when you have sex!

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