Adult choices: Gender-neutral adultery law is no solution

The Supreme Court is reconsidering our archaic law on adultery, in response to a public interest litigation. As it stands, a man can move a criminal complaint against his wife’s lover, but a woman cannot do the same. The woman in the love triangle is not seen as an active agent, so is not considered criminally liable. This is because the adultery law is entirely patriarchal, and intended to protect a man’s right to his own property, which his wife is assumed to be. A man is not a woman’s property in the same way, so his extramarital affairs cannot invite criminal action from his wife.

While the law is clearly rife with obsolete assumptions, the Centre’s response to this double standard has been to suggest making it gender-neutral, to make adultery criminal for both husband and wife. This is an entirely wrong-headed move, because it fails to see why the adultery law is an anachronism in the first place.

Marital infidelity is only an injury to the spouse, not to society at large. Collective morality should not impede constitutional rights of privacy and sexual autonomy. It can only be a civil wrong, to be remedied by divorce if needed. The state should not be prosecuting any act between consenting adults, on behalf of a wronged spouse, in the name of family values and social order. The Centre should not try to play the role of a moralistic meddler, it should let adults be adults.