{"id":3172,"date":"2011-02-02T02:52:45","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T21:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/?p=3172"},"modified":"2011-02-02T02:52:45","modified_gmt":"2011-02-01T21:22:45","slug":"decriminalizing-adultery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2011\/rights-and-freedoms\/decriminalizing-adultery.html\/","title":{"rendered":"Decriminalizing Adultery"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are conflicting signals coming from Indian courts as to whether adultery should be illegal or not. On the one had, the Delhi High court allowed a woman to live in with a married man<\/a> saying that it had no right to dictate to her how to live her life. The woman in question had bluntly told the court that it’s her life and she will live it the way she wants. She wasn’t being exploited and wasn’t being forced into the relationship and the court concluded that as an adult she was within her rights to live with whoever she wanted.<\/p>\n

\"Should
Should Adultery be a crime?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the other hand in a perplexing decision, the same court (but not the same judge) refused protection to a married man and his live in partner<\/a> saying “This is not America.” In this case, there doesn’t seem to have been any reasoning behind the statement and it comes across as the judge’s personal opinion and morals being shoved down the throat of others. IHM has written an interesting post<\/a> about this as well.<\/p>\n

Of course, in such situations there are matters such as child support and maintenance but those are quite separate<\/em> from the issues of living in with whomever one chooses. I would be quite alright with a judge saying “Live with whosoever you choose to regardless of whether you’re married or not. Just make sure that your children receive the support and aid to which they are entitled.” After all, how can a court or the government force a person to live with someone else when they no longer want to?<\/p>\n

Yet those who feel that adultery should be a crime seem to want just that. There might be good reasons for not wanting a divorce. Sometimes it can be just too much of a headache and the partners can simply decide to part ways while still being “legally” married. In such a scenario, the marriage itself means nothing and yet the man can be penalized for adultery but the woman cannot.<\/p>\n

But there are challenges to the law coming up. There are challenges on constitutional grounds<\/a> and the court has asked the government for clarification as to why the law shouldn’t be scrapped like it did with Section 377 regarding homosexuality<\/a>. Apart from being unconstitutional, the law is also highly gender biased since men can be prosecuted under the law, but not a woman.<\/p>\n

It’s time that such ridiculous moralizing be done away with. I mean how stupid are we that we allow the government to step into people’s bed rooms? Let people handle their own lives and their own affairs and have the government step in only when someone’s rights are being violated.<\/p>\n

Incidentally while researching on a topic of law for a writing assignment, I found out that adultery is prohibited even in some states of the US including Colorado! No punishment is prescribed, but it’s just “illegal.” The last case in Colorado that the law was applied to was in 1925 :) .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Indian government must decriminalize adultery. There’s no reason why the government can dictate what two adults can do in the privacy of their bedrooms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rights-and-freedoms"],"yoast_head":"\nDecriminalizing Adultery<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Indian government must decriminalize adultery. 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