Indian women are 'possessive' about their husbands, according to Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court recently upheld an order of the Trial Court dismissing a discharge application filed by a man who has been accused of abetting his wife's suicide. The wife had died by suicide allegedly on account of the fact that without divorcing her, her husband was going to marry another lady, reported LiveLaw.

Justice Rahul Chaturvedi made the observation as it upheld a trial court order dismissing a discharge application filed by a man accused of abetting his wife's suicide. The court went on to state that the accused, Sushil Kumar, had married for the third time and this was apparently the sole reason why his wife died by suicide.

The court went on to add that for a wife, her husband marrying another woman in secret is “sufficient reason” to end her own life.

“They (Indian wives) are literally possessive about their husband. It would be biggest jolt for any married woman that her husband is being shared by some other lady or he is going to marry some other lady. In such awkward situation, it would be impossible to expect any sanity from them. Exactly same thing happened in this case too,” the bench said, reported LiveLaw.

The deceased woman had lodged an instant FIR at Manduadih police station in Varanasi against her husband Sushil Kumar and his six family members under multiple sections of the IPC. This included the charges of voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation and marrying again during the lifetime of the spouse.

She had alleged that the accused was already married with some other lady and having two children from her and without divorcing her, he married for the third time, reported LiveLaw.

Mostly reported under the legal term of "cruelty by husband or his relatives", domestic violence has consistently been the most reported violent crime against women in India year after year. In 2020 - the last year for which crime data is available - police received complaints from 112,292 women - which breaks down to about one every five minutes.

According to the World Health Organization, one in three women globally face gender-based violence, most of it inflicted by intimate partners. The numbers for India are similar.

There are several domestic violence laws in India. The earliest law was the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 which made the act of giving and receiving dowry a crime. In an effort to bolster the 1961 law, two new sections, Section 498A and Section 304B were introduced into the Indian Penal Code in 1983 and 1986.

The most recent legislation is the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA) 2005. The PWDVA, a civil law, includes physical, emotional, sexual, verbal, and economic abuse as domestic violence.