The so-called marital rape, the act of sexual intercourse with one's spouse, which in popular parlance is without wife's consent has to be contextualized with conjugal rights,
‘especially to sexual relations, regarded as exercisable in law by each partner
in a marriage’.
Besides, the question of sexual consent in marriage,
which is but a ‘legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners
in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically
a union between a man and a woman) has to juxtaposed with the sexual violation
in rape that is an ‘unlawful sexual
intercourse or any other sexual penetration of the vagina, anus, or mouth of
another person, with or without force, by a sex organ, other body part, or
foreign object, without the consent of the victim’.
Hence, the so-called marital rape in a ‘legally or formally recognized union of two people’ is an
oxymoron for rape is an ‘unlawful sexual
intercourse’. Moreover, it’s futile not to reckon the proximity of spouse that
furthers the proclivities of man in appreciating his marital violation that is
besides the state of their union. Given the accommodative nature of marriage,
the couples tend to address their differing libidos and varying moods through
assorted means that nature provides for sexual relief, generally speaking that
is.
So, women may bear in mind Raja Rao’s
advice to his spouse in the author’s Benign Flame: Saga of Love:
“Sandhya, do realise that sex is the
nature’s gift for both the sexes. If you mistake that you’ve more to give than
receive in it, then the woman in you would lose as wife for you won’t be able
to experience the joy of being a female. So don’t ever demean lovemaking as an
instrument of sexual blackmail. It pays you to know that sex is not about male
satiation alone but it is as much a womanly fulfillment.”
