Is marriage of the victim a justified solution for rape?

Amayra Badoni

Student (Delhi University) | Posted on 22-Apr-2019

It is seriously a problematic and disgusting notion, which promotes nothing but the idea of women being the object of sexual preference which have no individuality of their own except for being someone’s wife, mother, or daughter.

Letsdiskuss (Courtesy: News Deeply)

When a woman is raped, it is the right to her own body which has been violated. Even an alien touch can subject a woman to the trauma of eternal mental and physical distress. So rape is something which would do even bigger harm. How can one expect all this to be compensated by the mere gesture of acceptance as one’s wife?

I know that a man accepting a woman who has been raped is indeed a big thing in the society where even being the victim of rape is a crime. But that doesn’t mean raping a woman and then getting her married can solve the problem entirely. It can’t even solve the problem partially.

And asking such questions just shows how lightly such a heinous and serious crime can be taken.

Also Read:- What does it mean to be a victim of circumstances?

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Priyal Verma

Student | Posted on 22-Apr-2019

In what is known as the rape capital of the country you can only come across questions like these about a topic so sensitive. It saddens me to my core as to how such a barbarous crime could be hidden in such a manner or turned a blind eye to. All the more important question is why.

It only points out how the victim is suffering the repercussions of what happened to her without her consent. She did not ask for it or the consequences that follow this heinous crime so why is she being punished like this? The only thing that could come to my mind is the idea of chastity that us Hindus so religiously follow. People think it is better to marry the poor girl because she has now lost her chastity,which by the way was not her fault, than to actually support her to cope with the trauma that she may have to carry for the rest of the life with her. The lack of supportive is probably why rape victims cannot leave this part of their lives behind and move forward in their lives. This also raises the question of as to how the question of one's chastity is noone else's business but everyone seems to poke their noses in it due to our 'traditions'.

Many headlines that I have come across said that the rape victim is many times forcefully married off to the man who raped her. This is probably due to the idea how she now 'belongs' to him since he took her virginity and now she is unpure and nobody else would accept her.It leaves me speechless as to how much desensitised people are about rape. It only raises the question of how you could give off your daughter to the man who took her without consent and is capable of doing it in the future. But of course marital rape is not considered a legitimate thing in India because the wife is supposed to fulfil all the needs of the husband. It leaves me dumbfounded as to what message it will send off to other people that rape a girl and get a bride in return which is apparently a win win situation for the man. But nobody here is looking at how they are depriving the girl not only of a joyous married life to her but just pushing her over to live a life with trauma. A life in which every morning she has to wake up beside the man who is the reason of her trauma and has to provide for him with all love and care he is actually depriving her of. This only shows how the concept of consent is alien to us all. It is visible by how the man first violated the consent of the girl when he raped her and then how her parents violated her consent by marrying her without taking her consent. Because obviously women were only born to satisfy others and not live as wholesome beings without the need to fulfil or provide for someone. Even with all this growth happening around us, we are still light years from development.

Letsdiskuss

Also Read :- What does it mean to be a victim of circumstances?

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