Recourse to justice Contravening the Constitution

Going beyond its brief Defining the concept of a family

Examples of outsider rights over the wife

Liberating a sheltered female What the Act mentions

The longer route to benediction Her man and his woman

The fettering and the meaning The essential codes

An external command

Let us first examine what the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 proposes to do. It does not aim at the protection of the unit called family. Its name gives the impression that it is putting up defences against the physical assaults of the husband on his wife. Yet, in reality it goes much beyond the scope of this definition. Moreover, the ways and manner of its doing is not conducive for a healthy family life. For, once the provisions of the Act are used, the continuance of the family as understood in the Indian social context becomes a farce. It is a situation wherein the husband literally exists in terror of eventualities, as experienced by him. So, in effect this Act is only a handy piece for the blackmailing wife and her relatives, including her father, mother, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, their spouses and others. There is no scope for any healthy married life, in the aims of this Act.

Recourse to justice: If it is physical attacks that are the issue, then there are laws in force to curtail, control and punish it. They can be used. In fact, if either side does physical violence, then these laws can be used. For example, a wife beats up her husband at the behest of her paramour, parents, boss and other superiors. The husband will have recourse to justice using these laws. There have been cases of such incidences.

However, the Act that is being discussed here is totally a one-sided one, with more or less no provisions for safeguards for the wrongly accused person. For, it needs to be understood that usually no ordinary (notice the words usually and ordinary) Indian wife would go to the police station and give an accusation on her own. She will be led by her parents, or some other persons who dominate her mind. Here itself the issue of the wife being under the control of an outside entity comes in.

Contravening the provision of the Constitution of India: Next is the issue of: How can a one-sided law be enforced in this nation? There are provisions to equality in the Constitution of India. How can they be simply ignored?

Well, the answer can be that the plight of many wives in India is terrible. The answer to that is that the plight of most people in India is terrible. For example, if one goes to the plantation areas, one can see plantation workers living a life, if seen from the outside, of terrible slavery. Yet, that does not mean that one can take them out from there and keep them as their own serving class.

Going beyond its brief: The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 goes beyond its brief. Instead of seeking to bring in support to the existence of the family unit, it gives legitimacy to rank outsiders like the wife’s relatives to interfere right inside the household.

Defining the concept of a family: What the government should have done before embarking on this un-understood topic was to first define the concept of a family life, and its parameters. The family is essentially a nuclear one. All the local religions support this concept, in the face of very ferocious onslaught it will have to bear from the claims of various outsiders. Even though the wife of a person is his own, the common social system, enforced by the feudal language did give outsiders many claims on the wife.

Examples of outsider rights over the wife: For example, in the utterly stupid Matriarchal system, the husband was more or less reduced to nullity. It was the claim of the wife’s granduncle to decide who she should live and sleep with. The tremendous power in the feudal words, made more powerful by the matriarchal system was to give this draconian right to a rank outsider who claimed to be her uncle. Now, the issue is also connected to the fact that most women who had to experience this sleeping with socially high-class outsiders did not really mind the issue. For, it was in a way, a way to enjoy the thrill of adultery with socially desirable personages, in a most legitimate and socially acceptable manner.

During the earlier centuries in many areas of India, the local feudal lords could lay hands on the wife of the lower class man, by simply taking her for employment in his household. The husband was literally a helpless creature when this happened. For the feudally crippling words and usages made him a sort of slave to the situation, even though there were no chains, which are usually used to define slavery.

Liberating a sheltered female: Then there is the continuing issue of the wife’s family literally entering into a highly liberated mood the moment the marriage is over. This issue can be explained thus: When a girl is brought up, she is generally kept in a sort of closed enclosure. She cannot go out wherever she wants. She cannot be outside in the evening hours. Being outside on her own, in the night-time is totally out of question. Her going in the company of outsiders is prohibited. She has to get the permission of her parents or uncles or aunts or elder sister or brother, or even sometimes of her younger brother, if she wants to go outside on her own.

Even though all this extremely cautious stances may be seen as a very good idea, given the general insecurity in India, actually the fact is that it is all a facade. For, all this very obvious acts of bringing up a virtuous girl is aimed at maintaining the marketability of the female in the marriage market. For, the moment the marriage is over, the parents heave a sense of relief. For, from now onwards the girl need not seek anyone’s permission. The attitude changes to: Why should she ask his (her husband’s) permission for going out? She is a free person. She can move with others if she likes. He is being very suspicious. Let her study what she wants. What is the problem if she accompanies another man on a journey to another place?

Now the whole issue of a suddenly socially-bursting out wife is on the shoulder of the husband. Now, here the reader may think that the writer of this book is being supportive of the husband. However, this is not the truth. For, both the Indian husband as well as the wife is from a horrible social mentality. Whatever they are bearing, they will also make others under them bear. It is not a case of them being good and the others being bad. It is a mentality that everyone carries, and uses on persons who come under them.

What the Act mentions and what it forgets to mention: Now, when the Act is talking about the prohibitions on the husband, it is quite idiotically being silent on similar prohibitions that have to be placed on the wife’s parents, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, cousins and others.

The husband should not use abusive words or insult them (his wife’s various relatives). Well, that is good. Yet, where is the provision that they should also not do the same things to him? Well, the husband can take up the issue to the courts or the police station! Well, only a bloody idiot can believe that all such things are easy. It is quite possible that the drafters of this Act have had no occasion to deal with the Indian Police as a common man. Moreover, if this is the way the husband should react towards provocative actions from his wife’s parents’ family members’ side, then why are they also not to take recourse in the same manner? Drafting a law that violates the very concept of equality before the law, with secure equanimity is something that has to be punished at an equal level of brutality. For, such laws have made the life of millions in this land a hell. This land is a hell for an immensity of persons. These mediocre drafters are adding to the terribleness.

The longer route to benediction: Before embarking on finding fault with one of the entities in an Indian married life, and daring to introduce rules and laws into it, there should have been a spirited attempt to first codify what the Indian institution of marriage means. These drafters have taken the easier route, befitting their illustrious mediocrity. That of standing as guardians to one of the entity, sending out a signal to the other that he is the evil side in the marriage, and that he better watch out.

Her man and his woman: Let us take the issue of the man-woman relationship in a marriage. The husband is her man, and she is his woman. Even though this may seem a very silly statement, the truth is that this is the very basis of true marriage, in its unfettered state.

The words his and her literally make the person a sort of property of the other. Well, would these words provoke the invective of the feminists and of the law makers? How can a woman be the property of her husband? Well, the question of whose property is she, then comes in. If the answer is that she is no one’s property, then she becomes a free-for-all to seduce and secure. Well, that is quite an idiotic proposition and conclusion.

The fettering and the meaning: Marriage has its fettering, no doubt. Like a person who joins a labour force in a company. There are rules he has to obey, servitude he has to bear, seniority he has to display, and a link in a string/s he has to become. Like that marriage also has its meaning. Well, the exact design of the marriage depends on the language of social communication, and it is to a great extent redesigned by the language of intellectual pondering that one uses in one’s brain. Feudal vernaculars design marriage quite differently from an English speaking people’s marriage.

The essential codes: What should the codes of Indian marriage include? Well, there should be a real understanding that marriage is a joining up of two persons in a special kind of union. All others are totally outside this unit. They cannot try to persuade, seduce, secure, make use of, or indoctrinate one of them without the full permission of the other. Well, they can try, for it is everyone’s freedom to do such things. But it is not a righteous act on their part. And it can be rightfully resisted by the other person’s partner.

An external command: Even the calling of the wife by her parents without the permission or knowledge of the husband on a mobile phone is an act of intrusion and belligerence. For, simply compare the situation with a business organisation. When the personnel enter the premises, they are told to switch off their mobile phones. Why? Because, it is like an associate of theirs coming and talking to them right inside the business premises. It links their thought processes, to outside issues, which would make their commitment for work in doubt.

Here again there is a difference between an English work area and an Indian one. In the Indian one, the associates wouldn’t use words of respect about the boss in their private places. So allowing outsiders to call upon the workers would amount to allowing them to use disrespectful words, right inside the owner’s own premises. It can really bring in issues of discipline, and efficiency in work. For discipline, regimentation, obedience, loyalty and such things are connected to the respect-subordination word codes. Mind you there are no such issues of indicant words in pristine English.

Similarly, a wife being called by her family, boss, professional associates, are all attempts to draw her out of her family affairs. It depends on how the husband views this. If these are persons, who are mentally accepted by the husband, and he knows his place of servitude or superiority to them, and there is nothing cantankerous in the relationships, then it might not be a problem. However, if there is an acrimonious tone in the relationship, then the wife has no business to attend the call. For, it is literally like her being called upon on the road, when she is walking with her husband, by a person whom her husband views inimically. For once married, she is a new person, with new links and attachments. Other attachments have no business to compete with this attachment. If benignly endowed, they can only send signals that empower this new attachment. And not that would spoil it.