“No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century”, said Mark Twain (1835-1910), a great American author. When I came across this quote, I wished all the people really felt loved, respected, and dignified in their married lives. As unfortunate as this observation is, it overwhelms me when I recall that marriage can be arduous for some women.
I wish to explore in this article certain intricacies of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), also referred to as domestic violence (DV). I aim to make readers contemplate on the grievous issues of IPV and its paraphernalia pertaining to married women. WHO explains IPV as acts between intimate partners which culminate in physical, sexual or psychological harm. It includes current as well as former partners.
IPV in Nepali context is mostly known as ‘domestic violence’ or gharelu hinsa. Section 2(a) of Domestic Violence (Crime and Punishment) Act, 2008 defines domestic violence as any form of physical, mental, sexual and economic abuse perpetrated by any person to the other person with whom he has a family relationship. The punishment for this crime varies from six months to twenty years depending on the modus operandi of the perpetrator.
News about women experiencing IPV are frequent in Nepali media and many women lose their lives to this atrocity. Is it really that common or is it a conspiracy to shake the strong social foundation?
The WHO estimates that IPV affects 1 in 3 women worldwide. A 2012 data from the Ministry of Health and Population recorded that more than 1 in 4 women in Nepal of reproductive age experienced IPV in their lifetimes. Also, a 2024 study showed that out of 3,853 women, 27.2 percent had experienced at least one form of IPV. Women belonging to poor households and those with uneducated partners were more prone to experiencing sexual violence.
Is it a declining problem? Definitely not. How can it be that people, since their childhood, are taught to respect everybody and harm nobody, but end up becoming the exact opposite individual, who harms his wife, the one individual he is supposed to respect and protect?
Many concerned individuals in social media are quick to blame our philosophical foundations that our ancient Hindu texts have episodes of gender-based discriminations, exemplifying Draupadi’s tragedy at the Pandava-Kaurava dice game, or Sita’s kidnapping by Ravana, indicating that the very figures we worship and stories we preach morality to children with, have suffuse this discrimination into the following centuries. However, there is another side to it. Our ancient moral-legal codes have been protective of human life and stringent against harms against women.
Manusmriti (c. 2nd Century BC) is one of the most influential laws in Hindu philosophy. It says the following.
yatra nāryastu pūjyante ramante tatra devatāḥ |
yatraitāstu na pūjyante sarvāstatrāphalāḥ kriyāḥ ||
This verse is from the chapter of Rules Regarding Marriage. It translates into “where women are respected and honored, there the Gods rejoice; and where women are disrespected, no task produces success.” This law had imposed, about more than two thousand years earlier, moral and legal obligations on people to respect married women to ensure peace and prosperity. Do people adhere to this moral code when they welcome brides into their homes? Does it empower women to speak against the atrocity subjected to them knowing that their forefathers had envisaged a benevolent moral-legal foundation?
Laws against sexual harassment and marital rape in Nepal have left a fetid void for married women, rendering them helpless against such crimes. Section 224 of the National Penal Code, 2017 explains that sexual harassment involves acts, inter alia, such as unwanted physical contact or attempts to touch sensitive areas, interfering with someone’s undergarments, showing pornography non-consensually, teasing or annoying someone with a sexual motive, behaving in an undesirable or indecent manner, such person not being one’s wife or husband. This definition blatantly contradicts the definition of domestic violence mentioned in the Act against domestic violence. Similarly, Section 219(4) criminalizes marital rape and sanctions imprisonment of “up to” five years. It means that the husband can be imprisoned for a day, at least, and five years, for the most.
The legal provisions demand a question as to what legal remedy is available if a wife experiences such behaviors from her husband. Do wives not get to exercise their free consent? Do husbands get an “all-time” access card to their wives’ bodies after marriage? Does martial relationship reduce the gravity of rape crimes?
If you search for married women being abused, battered, and killed, you will be presented with numerous sources which will inform you that they die due to reasons like intoxicated husbands, infertility, inadequate dowry, extra-marital preferences, gender dynamics and so on.
What is the solution to this atrocity? How can we revise the provenance of a peaceful and tranquil marital relationship in our society? Early education? Research conducted titled “Interventions to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence” by Alsina et al (2024), suggests that education methodologies such as gender-transformative education, small-group counselling, community mobilization, economic empowerment, cooperative workshops involving men and women are some of the ways to reduce IPV/DV. I too believe that early philosophical, moral, and social education to boys and girls can allow them to become better men and resilient women, who would break the trend of DV/IPV.
Mutual respect, dignity, freedom, equal rights, and rule of law are the basic foundations of our modern civilized society. We pride ourselves on belonging to a federal democratic republic country where laws are created for the sole benefit of the citizens and people. Yet, there are certain populations who do not get to enjoy such freedom. I wish to conclude with one question. If we fail to create a harmonious society where marital relationship is revered, then why would women today want to marry someone knowing their rights will become fewer after getting married?
Aawesh Bhadra Karn
BA LLB 5th Year
Kathmandu School of Law
