Adultery law, not women, only men are guilty!

The Dhaka Times Desk Adultery law, not women, only men are guilty! But is that right? Why such a law? Our neighbor India has such a law. Therefore, the country's top court wants to look into this section of the law.

In India, if a person voluntarily engages in sexual relations with another woman, only he will be punished under the existing adultery laws. The adulterous woman will get a discount!

This is seen as a form of gender discrimination. Therefore, the country's top court wants to look into this section of the law.

It is known that this law is about 150 years old. Section 497 of the relevant Penal Code of that Act states that if a person has voluntary sexual relations with another woman, it will be considered as adultery, not rape. In that case, only men will be punished. He can be jailed up to 5 years and fined for this crime. In the penal code of the current law, men are adulterers and women are their victims - this is how they are seen. So women get exemption. However, if the woman's husband consents to the sexual relationship, it will not be considered as adultery or rape.

Last week, a bench of the country's Supreme Court Chief Justice Dipak Misra questioned the mindset of this Victorian-era law. What does it mean for married women to be like husbands? Is the wife the property or product of the husband? Or a self-identified puppet under him?

The Supreme Court of the country feels that now is the time to realize that men and women are equal in all respects. They have been given equal rights in the constitution. So the Supreme Court now wants to look into two aspects of the prevailing adultery laws of the country.

One, in section 497 of this Act, men are adulterers and women are their victims - its rationale.

Two, it is not adultery if the woman's husband agrees.

The complexity of the matter is, in the name of old-fashioned patriarchy, how reasonable is it to see and discount women as brides of mercy? so see

Previously, the same issue was appealed to the Supreme Court three times. But every time it was dismissed in court. In the 1985 Somitri Vishnu case, Vishnu's husband sought a divorce on the grounds that his wife had committed adultery with another man. Vishnu's lawyer Nalini Chidambaram called Section 497 an example of gender discrimination, legal arbitrariness and patriarchy. He said that on the grounds that Vishnurswamy is seeking divorce, no right has been given to a wife to file a case against her husband. Not only that, even if a married man has sexual relations with another unmarried woman, a case cannot be filed against the patriarch. This simply means that the husband is beyond the reach of the law when it comes to physical relations outside of marriage. The then Chief Justice of India Y. In V Chandrachud's court, that petition was dismissed as emotional. It was only said that social action may be taken against the unbelieving husband. Because seducing another's wife is a detestable act in the eyes of society.

Before that, it was 1954. In the Yusup Abdul Aziz adultery case, a 5-judge Constitution Bench ruled that Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code did not provide for the provision of action against the woman concerned. That's why lawmakers need special resources. In 1988, the judges in the Revati case ruled that men should be punished. Because he has destroyed the sanctity of marriage by having an illicit relationship with a woman. So, just as the wife cannot go to court to send the adulterous husband to jail, similarly the husband cannot send him to jail for adultery.

Prominent feminist Shaswati Ghosh told Deutsche Welle, “Gender equality should be maintained in both cases. That is, girls should also have the right to go to court. And if the girls engage in another relationship during the marital relationship, then he has to take responsibility for that too. That is, he also needs to be judged. What I can say today is that there needs to be a 'gender justice' law from both sides." Needless to say, when the present law was framed in 1829-30, the sphere of girls was considered to be the house and the sphere of the husband or man was considered to be outside. This law was made to protect the marital relationship to protect the home and family of girls.

Feminist Shaswati Ghosh also told Deutsche Welle, "In many cases we have seen many girls complaining that their husbands are handing them over to their friends." In that case, the consent of the husband should be seen. Is it only the consent of the husband or also the consent of the wife? If both have consent then it will not come under court. In this context he refers to the story of writer Ashutosh Mukherjee's Aami Se O Sakha, where the husband feels that he is completely unable to maintain the normal relations of married life. So if his wife is good with another man, then let her be. In that case neither party will go to court. If the husband does this out of ambition, such as for money or glory, without the wife's true consent, it cannot be justified at all.

The question is whether adultery should be considered a crime under the current law. That is why it is necessary to review this law. It is now not considered a crime in many countries. The UN Working Group believes that countries where such laws exist and discriminate against women should be abolished altogether.