Love, relationship, Adultery: Adultery get legal permit, no longer a crime in India

India seems to be having a great cultural shift, with globalisation and modernisation. As our laws have made gay relationship legal, so is adultery not a crime anymore in India, unlike before when it was a taboo and considered criminal.

Adultery is still considered illegal in 21 American states, including New York, although surveys show that while most Americans disapprove of adultery, they don’t think of it as a crime.

Adultery is strictly prohibited in Sharia or Islamic Law, so it is a criminal offence in Islamic countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia.

Taiwan punishes adultery by up to a year in prison and it is also deemed a crime in Indonesia. In fact, Indonesia is drafting laws that prohibit all consensual sex outside the institution of marriage.

In UK, adultery is not a criminal offence and like many other countries, one of the main reasons given for divorce.

Lately handling a case in India, all 5 supreme court judges put forth their views saying……”Husband is not the master of wife. Women should be treated with equality along with men,” Chief Justice Misra said. Judge Rohinton Nariman said that “ancient notions of man being perpetrator and woman being victim no longer hold good”. Justice DY Chandrachud said the law “perpetuates subordinate status of women, denies dignity, sexual autonomy, is based on gender stereotypes”. He said the law sought to “control sexuality of woman (and) hits the autonomy and dignity of woman”.

India has revolutionised to the utmost level from the women empowerment perspective and every mode of happiness and fulfillment to women can’t be looked upon as low, punishable or criminal, be it adultery.