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Pre-marital sex: 'Nothing immoral if both are honest'
A Delhi court has ruled that pre-marital sex is an immoral act and that women having sexual intercourse on assurance of marriage do so at their own peril. We had asked you, our readers what you thought of it.
Do you believe that pre-marital sex is an immoral act?
Would you agree that if a woman engages in sexual intercourse on the promise of marriage, she does so at her own risk?
The most recent judgement passed by a Delhi court threw up these and many related questions when it labelled pre-marital sex as an ‘immoral’ act.
Additional sessions judge Virender Bhat acquitted a 29-year-old man who had physical relations with a young lady who he met online in July 2006 promising to marry her.
The judge ruled that 'when a grown up, educated and office-going woman subjects herself to sexual intercourse with a friend or colleague on the latter's promise that he would marry her, she does so at her own peril'.
He further stated that the woman 'must understand that she is engaging in an act which not only is immoral but also against the tenets of every religion'.
In the light of the judgement, we had asked you, our readers, if you too thought that pre-marital sex was immoral?
These is what some of you had to say:
"There's a reason for calling this act as immoral," writes Santa, "Whatever might be the outcome of this act, for example -- girl getting pregnant and then getting deserted by the boy, or parents not agreeing and hence marriage not taking place, or the boy filming the act and selling the clip/distributing it to his friends, or the girl accusing the boy of rape once this act comes to light, etc or both girl and boy getting married to live happily ever after.
Ultimately, most of these outcomes are not good, either for the girl or the boy, except for one, where the couple lives happily ever after.
Hence, the society has termed it as immoral so that the girl and boy do not even consider performing this act, thus keeping themselves out of trouble."
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"Adultery is immoral in love," says Sandip Dhar.
"Lying about one's past is immoral. But how can premarital physical relation be immoral?
"Cannot understand how the court reached this decision. In modern society, what is lacking loyalty.
"Being loyal and honest in a relationship matters.
"The court is probably being guided by our Indian virtue of being virgin until marriage.
"And this, in our society, applies to women only!
If a boy and a girl enter into physical relationship, it is a decision taken by two adults who should consider and prepare for consequences in future.
"But there is nothing immoral in it if both of them are honest towards the relationship."
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Hailing the judgement, Gaurav Gupta says:
"This is a very good judgement and will have bearing on hundreds or "revenge" cases filed in our courts.
"The onus of the relationship cannot be put purely on the boy.
"What if the girl walks out of the relationship when she sees greener pastures elsewhere or she does not have the courage to go against her parents.
"The boy too must be given equal right to file a "breach of trust" case.
"There should be a provision in the law to punish women who file false cases of rape just to seek revenge.
"The offence of filing a false case of such a grave nature must be made non-bailable. The boy must be compensated for loss of dignity in society also for loss of job/loss of income that he has suffered because of this case.
"The compensation amount must be taken from the woman, even by selling her property or parents property if need be .Only then will we see such false cases come down. Only then will real rape victims get the justice they deserve."
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Suchet Kumar says, the question of morality "depends upon ones consensus. But sex should not be taken as a medium for seeking short time gratification and enjoyment.
"It would be better if the physical relation turns into institution of marriage when both boy and girl have well settled in their lives without succumbing to the pressures of caste and class from their peers.
"In my opinion it is not necessary that a boy and girls relation should always have element of sex. Boys should respect girls or female partners, should be caring, helping and protective.
"I think such relation would be long lasting, healthy even if they get married to any other person.
"Truly speaking a wife won't want her husband to not be a virgin and same goes with the husband.
"A person before entering into per-marital sex should think about all these future consequences."
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The sole female voice on the message board, Nisha Thoas says:
"I can clearly see through some of the replies in this forum: the types who never had a close friend of the opposite gender and thus have no experience of intimacy, and are therefore envious if others who are engaging consensually (maybe even their close friends).
"I can only pity such guys and understand that they would like the others to come down a few notches, but the point is if it's consensual among adults, then why ever not?
"Two mature adults, as long as they are not hurting anyone, can engage in this and it's none of society's business to poke into someone's internal affairs.
"Sexual urge is quite natural, be it for the females or the males, and there is absolutely no harm in it being satiated with a consenting adult.
"I know many people, both from my workplace and also from friends circle who have crossed 'second base' (to use a common lingo), and these so-called moral standing of the society wont change a thing.
"You can have a hundred debates and people crying out saying 'it's wrong', but it's on the rise and will continue to remain so.
"And by the way, don't we have enough issues in our country to ponder, like corruption, infrastructure, employment etc. Why take a non-issue and moral police? Grow up, society!"