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Adultery is a moral crime - more than a legal crime - as it directly challenges the sanctity of marriage. Most of the countries have the crime punishable, even India has. However, the peculiarity of the crime in India is that it punishes only men for adultery. Women are considered as victims. This is the highest form of socio-legal discrimination against men.
Let us first see, what could be the reasons for such an open discrimination against men. The general argument given by feminists and their pamperers is that since women are an exploited lot since years, they should have this freedom to have sex outside marriage and it's the man's fault who's seduced her. Also it's her husband who is responsible for not giving love to the wife so she is ‘forced' to look for love outside.
Now we will look at the flip side of it. First of all, it is simply not possible for any man to have sex with any woman without her consent as explained in The Very Concept of Rape, Rapes Men. Further, in a country like India, often women are married against their wishes in pursuit of a wealthy son-in-law and it is quite possible that the woman does not fall in love with her ‘wealthy' husband and will look for love outside the marriage.
In such situations, neither the husband nor the paramour of the woman is to be held responsible for the crime of adultery. But still the open bias exists. Moreover, the husband cannot punish the wife for breaking the sanctity of marriage; he can only punish the man who took advantage of the prevailing situation.
Again, even if we think from a woman's perspective, she can neither punish her husband nor the woman with whom he had sex outside marriage because women are simply not punishable in adultery offenses.
Various courts of India including the Supreme Court have upheld the constitutional sanctity of the adultery law in India saying that since women are an exploited lot and the constitution of India provides for special provisions for women.
Needless to say, I disagree with both the arguments of the learned courts and it is time, the judges and courts stop pampering women at every possible instance at the cost of men. First of all, the view that women are an exploited lot may be correct but not complete. Cultures have exploited both men and women in different spheres; however, the projection has always been one-sided. Secondly, the constitution of India does provide for special provisions for women but not for special laws.
Constitution provides for special provisions, not laws and this is what the courts need to understand. Adultery is a crime and both the man and woman should be punished for that. The law in its current form is totally unacceptable as it has been formulated on the Victim Women Criminal Men Syndrome which considers women as Victims always and men as Criminal always which is not only socially unacceptable but morally wrong as well.
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