‘There’s a lack of positive space for men’
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A family court has said that if a wife insults her husband in the
presence of his friends or in the presence of her friends and relatives,
it amounts to cruelty. dna gets one man talking
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Amit Deshpande
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There is no help for a man if the wife is abusive. The
judgment where the court granted divorce to a man who accused his wife
of mental cruelty, citing her abusive behaviour towards him, his friends
and his relatives needs to be supported.
In a marital set-up, if a wife keeps on humiliating her husband for whatever reasons — financial or sexual incompetence — the man is bound to feel a loss of dignity and it is in no way different than the loss of dignity of a wife for any reason. We should see this in the same view of a man humiliating his wife by attacking her womanhood — when she is unable to bear a child — or even if he taunts her for her looks. As a progressive and just society, we should discourage any form of humiliation based upon gender roles. The Supreme Court has given many judgments in which it has granted divorce when the wife has been abusive towards her husband and insulted him in public. Today, men have no place to go to for help if they have an abusive wife or one who shows signs of compulsive obsessive disorder. Men do not even ask for help and continue to suffer in abusive relationships as it is considered unmanly to seek help. The real problem lies in the fact that society functions by creating competition among men. Unfortunately, in the patriarchal social mindset, a man has to earn his manhood to gain respect and survive. The emotions of a man are not respected in the same way as the emotions of a woman are. With the increasing focus on women’s issues, there is a lack of positive space for men in society. Many a time it is found that men turn violent towards themselves and take the extreme step. Every year, over 63,000 married men commit suicide in India. These men are mostly those who have proven their manhood and have become eligible for marriage, including many professionals. According to the principles of natural justice, this judgment seems a step in the right direction. ‘Humiliating hubby is cruelty’, p5 |
Wednesday 4 September 2013
‘There’s a lack of positive space for men’
Woman cries rape,cops see foul play
HAZARIBAG:
A mother of three lodged a complaint on Tuesday at the Pelawal police
station against her neighbour alleging that he had raped her. However,
police said the woman was bringing false accusations against the man and
termed it consensual sex.
The woman in her FIR said the accused, Umesh Kumar Mehta, entered her house forcibly on the pretext of drinking water and raped her. Mehta dared to commit the crime in absence of the woman's husband Dwarka Sao, who was out of town. Mehta even locked up the children in a room.
However, DSP (headquarters) Arvind Kumar Singh after interrogating the woman found Mehta was known to the woman and it was consensual sex.
Singh also said the woman was crying rape because her husband came back home suddenly and saw the two in a compromising position.
Youth held: A youth was arrested in Ranchi's Sukhdeo Nagar locality when he attempted to rape a 5-year-old girl on Tuesday afternoon. The accused, a driver was playing with the girl in the basement of an apartment in Sukhdeo Nagar when he took her to the bathroom where he tried to rape her. The parents of the girl caught the boy when the girl started crying. "The people caught the boy and brought him to the police station," said circle inspector Hari Chandra Singh. An FIR was lodged in this connection, said Singh http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/Woman-cries-rapecops-see-foul-play/articleshow/22277731.cms
The woman in her FIR said the accused, Umesh Kumar Mehta, entered her house forcibly on the pretext of drinking water and raped her. Mehta dared to commit the crime in absence of the woman's husband Dwarka Sao, who was out of town. Mehta even locked up the children in a room.
However, DSP (headquarters) Arvind Kumar Singh after interrogating the woman found Mehta was known to the woman and it was consensual sex.
Singh also said the woman was crying rape because her husband came back home suddenly and saw the two in a compromising position.
Youth held: A youth was arrested in Ranchi's Sukhdeo Nagar locality when he attempted to rape a 5-year-old girl on Tuesday afternoon. The accused, a driver was playing with the girl in the basement of an apartment in Sukhdeo Nagar when he took her to the bathroom where he tried to rape her. The parents of the girl caught the boy when the girl started crying. "The people caught the boy and brought him to the police station," said circle inspector Hari Chandra Singh. An FIR was lodged in this connection, said Singh http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/Woman-cries-rapecops-see-foul-play/articleshow/22277731.cms
Plea against 'cruel' father dismissed
MUMBAI:
A court last week dismissed a petition filed by a mother seeking
temporary injunction, restraining the father from seeing their two
daughters on the grounds of cruelty.
Observing that children must spend time with both parents, the court said, "Access of the children is not for the pleasure of the parents, it is for the welfare of the children. It appears the parents are trying to make capital of past incidents that took place between them, to fight on the point of access and custody of the children but that should not happen in the larger interest of the children."
The mother said in her petition that the father had treated both daughters badly. She said that on a trip to Murud-Janjira, the father had told the elder daughter to hold three cans of beer.
She said that in June 2011 the couple quarreled and he threw the daughter's brand new cellphone into the dustbin. The mother said he had verbally abused the child. She said the daughters were staying with her since last November, and the father would harass them at school.
But the father said there was no evidence to establish those incidents.
He said both were tutored and their minds were poisoned by their mother. He said being the non-custodial parent he was concerned about their welfare and must get to meet them.
The court took into consideration a report by a counselor appointed when the father had filed a plea seeking permission to spend time with the younger daughter on her birthday. "On perusal of the counselor's report, it is revealed the children were under great influence of their mother as they are with her since separation of the parties," the court said. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Plea-against-cruel-father-dismissed/articleshow/22273310.cms
Observing that children must spend time with both parents, the court said, "Access of the children is not for the pleasure of the parents, it is for the welfare of the children. It appears the parents are trying to make capital of past incidents that took place between them, to fight on the point of access and custody of the children but that should not happen in the larger interest of the children."
The mother said in her petition that the father had treated both daughters badly. She said that on a trip to Murud-Janjira, the father had told the elder daughter to hold three cans of beer.
She said that in June 2011 the couple quarreled and he threw the daughter's brand new cellphone into the dustbin. The mother said he had verbally abused the child. She said the daughters were staying with her since last November, and the father would harass them at school.
But the father said there was no evidence to establish those incidents.
He said both were tutored and their minds were poisoned by their mother. He said being the non-custodial parent he was concerned about their welfare and must get to meet them.
The court took into consideration a report by a counselor appointed when the father had filed a plea seeking permission to spend time with the younger daughter on her birthday. "On perusal of the counselor's report, it is revealed the children were under great influence of their mother as they are with her since separation of the parties," the court said. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Plea-against-cruel-father-dismissed/articleshow/22273310.cms
Bill without benefits
Though
the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010, passed by the Rajya Sabha
last week, granting some women a limited right in their husband’s
property, is a step in the right direction, it falls short of
expectations. The right has been extended only to Hindu women and those
who marry under the Special Marriage Act and whose husbands have filed
for divorce on the ground of marriage breakdown. What was needed was a
separate statute (like the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence
Act) to protect the economic rights of all married women and not just of
a privileged few, and that too through convoluted clauses.
The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill is aimed at addressing two different concerns — making divorce easy and protecting the economic rights of women, but succeeds in doing neither. To waive the statutory six month “cooling period” for securing a divorce by mutual consent, when both parties desire it due to hardships caused to them, one did not need a major law reform. The family courts across the country were routinely doing this in cases where the parties made a joint application explaining the hardship. In 2002, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the Anjana Kishore vs Puneet Kishore case had directed the courts to do away with this provision. The higher judiciary was also granting divorce on the ground of breakdown of marriage in specific cases of protracted litigation. In 1995, in the Romesh Chander vs Savitri case, the Supreme Court, while upholding the principle of marriage breakdown, had directed the husband to transfer the matrimonial home to the wife’s name at the time of divorce.
Even while puncturing holes in the bill, one must admit that it is an improved version of the earlier bill introduced unceremoniously in the Rajya Sabha in August 2010 and later referred to the Joint Select Committee. The urgency for the 2010 bill was to rectify the harmful precedent set by a ruling of the Supreme Court which concerned the daughter of Sushil Kumar Shinde, the Union home minister. The Supreme Court had, in 2009, upheld the ruling of the Bombay high court which had set aside an irregular divorce granted by the family court of Mumbai under rather peculiar circumstances, disregarding the provisions of law. So a bill was hastily introduced, touted as a “women friendly” bill as it would make divorce easy for women despite the fact that it did not make any financial provisions to safeguard their rights. Not surprisingly, the bill received the support of men’s rights groups, which, in itself, ought to have been a warning signal.
Proverbially, one swallow does not a summer make. The need to obtain a quick divorce and “move on in life” is a luxury enjoyed by only a microscopic minority of women who are independent with sufficient means or family backing. For the rest, marriage is an economic partnership, and its dissolution, especially one that disregards their non-monetary contribution to the household in the form of unpaid labour, deprives them of their shelter and sustenance, rendering them destitute. In fact, most women approach the courts for maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code when they are abandoned by their husbands. When orders are passed in their favour, the husbands file divorce proceedings to spite them. But under the present system, the husband has to prove cruelty or desertion, which even in the hands of the most astute lawyers is not easy. It is at this stage that the woman gets an opportunity to negotiate for her economic rights and a husband, eager to obtain a divorce, may be willing to negotiate a lump sum financial settlement. But if divorce becomes a certainty, women will be deprived of this negotiating power and the state would then have to step in and make a statutory provision to make their lives financially secure.
Rather unfortunately, this dire need to protect women was overlooked by the various law commissions while recommending the introduction of irretrievable breakdown of marriage within the Indian context, though all countries which they mention in support of their recommendations have a property division clause attached to the breakdown clause. The first official mention of this provision is found only in the Report of the Joint Select Committee submitted to the Rajya Sabha in March 2011, after several women’s groups made written and oral depositions before it.
But the present bill has several provisions which are counterproductive. It stipulates that if a petition for divorce is pending before a court for over three years, the courts have the power to dissolve the marriage. But the provision to keep a petition pending for three years is not available in law as it lapses at the end of 18 months. Soon after a petition lapses, the party desiring divorce can file on the ground of marriage breakdown without having to wait for a further period of one-and-a-half years.
Second, even for obtaining divorce on “no fault ground”, evidence would have to be led to prove the three years separation. To make matters worse, it allows a period of not more than three months of cohabitation in between. Third, in order to avail of the provision of property division, the wife would have to file a separate “petition” rather than a simple “interim application”.
And the most contentious issue — adequate provision to remedy the hardship caused to the wife, would need lengthy and elaborate trial. If the couple could reach a consensus, they would have opted for a divorce by mutual consent. The fact that it has reached a stage of invoking the ground of breakdown of marriage is a sure sign that it will lead to protracted litigation. The courts would then have to determine what is “self acquired”, what is ancestral and the notional value of “heritable” property as compared to other heirs and use the living standard criteria to ascertain undisclosed wealth — all this is a nightmare for any trial court judge.
It would have been simpler to declare that all property acquired by husband at the time of marriage or in the course of marriage be deemed as “joint property” to be divided at the time of divorce, with an additional clause to secure the wife’s rights in the matrimonial residence, as is done in Britain and other Commonwealth countries. This simple solution, along with a state scheme to prevent destitution of all abandoned women whose husbands do not own property, nor have any means of livelihood, would have been beneficial.
The writer is a women’s rights lawyer
The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill is aimed at addressing two different concerns — making divorce easy and protecting the economic rights of women, but succeeds in doing neither. To waive the statutory six month “cooling period” for securing a divorce by mutual consent, when both parties desire it due to hardships caused to them, one did not need a major law reform. The family courts across the country were routinely doing this in cases where the parties made a joint application explaining the hardship. In 2002, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the Anjana Kishore vs Puneet Kishore case had directed the courts to do away with this provision. The higher judiciary was also granting divorce on the ground of breakdown of marriage in specific cases of protracted litigation. In 1995, in the Romesh Chander vs Savitri case, the Supreme Court, while upholding the principle of marriage breakdown, had directed the husband to transfer the matrimonial home to the wife’s name at the time of divorce.
Even while puncturing holes in the bill, one must admit that it is an improved version of the earlier bill introduced unceremoniously in the Rajya Sabha in August 2010 and later referred to the Joint Select Committee. The urgency for the 2010 bill was to rectify the harmful precedent set by a ruling of the Supreme Court which concerned the daughter of Sushil Kumar Shinde, the Union home minister. The Supreme Court had, in 2009, upheld the ruling of the Bombay high court which had set aside an irregular divorce granted by the family court of Mumbai under rather peculiar circumstances, disregarding the provisions of law. So a bill was hastily introduced, touted as a “women friendly” bill as it would make divorce easy for women despite the fact that it did not make any financial provisions to safeguard their rights. Not surprisingly, the bill received the support of men’s rights groups, which, in itself, ought to have been a warning signal.
Proverbially, one swallow does not a summer make. The need to obtain a quick divorce and “move on in life” is a luxury enjoyed by only a microscopic minority of women who are independent with sufficient means or family backing. For the rest, marriage is an economic partnership, and its dissolution, especially one that disregards their non-monetary contribution to the household in the form of unpaid labour, deprives them of their shelter and sustenance, rendering them destitute. In fact, most women approach the courts for maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code when they are abandoned by their husbands. When orders are passed in their favour, the husbands file divorce proceedings to spite them. But under the present system, the husband has to prove cruelty or desertion, which even in the hands of the most astute lawyers is not easy. It is at this stage that the woman gets an opportunity to negotiate for her economic rights and a husband, eager to obtain a divorce, may be willing to negotiate a lump sum financial settlement. But if divorce becomes a certainty, women will be deprived of this negotiating power and the state would then have to step in and make a statutory provision to make their lives financially secure.
Rather unfortunately, this dire need to protect women was overlooked by the various law commissions while recommending the introduction of irretrievable breakdown of marriage within the Indian context, though all countries which they mention in support of their recommendations have a property division clause attached to the breakdown clause. The first official mention of this provision is found only in the Report of the Joint Select Committee submitted to the Rajya Sabha in March 2011, after several women’s groups made written and oral depositions before it.
But the present bill has several provisions which are counterproductive. It stipulates that if a petition for divorce is pending before a court for over three years, the courts have the power to dissolve the marriage. But the provision to keep a petition pending for three years is not available in law as it lapses at the end of 18 months. Soon after a petition lapses, the party desiring divorce can file on the ground of marriage breakdown without having to wait for a further period of one-and-a-half years.
Second, even for obtaining divorce on “no fault ground”, evidence would have to be led to prove the three years separation. To make matters worse, it allows a period of not more than three months of cohabitation in between. Third, in order to avail of the provision of property division, the wife would have to file a separate “petition” rather than a simple “interim application”.
And the most contentious issue — adequate provision to remedy the hardship caused to the wife, would need lengthy and elaborate trial. If the couple could reach a consensus, they would have opted for a divorce by mutual consent. The fact that it has reached a stage of invoking the ground of breakdown of marriage is a sure sign that it will lead to protracted litigation. The courts would then have to determine what is “self acquired”, what is ancestral and the notional value of “heritable” property as compared to other heirs and use the living standard criteria to ascertain undisclosed wealth — all this is a nightmare for any trial court judge.
It would have been simpler to declare that all property acquired by husband at the time of marriage or in the course of marriage be deemed as “joint property” to be divided at the time of divorce, with an additional clause to secure the wife’s rights in the matrimonial residence, as is done in Britain and other Commonwealth countries. This simple solution, along with a state scheme to prevent destitution of all abandoned women whose husbands do not own property, nor have any means of livelihood, would have been beneficial.
The writer is a women’s rights lawyer
सुहागरात में पत्नी ने मारी लात, युवक ने जिद पकड़ ली लड़की बनने की
अहमदाबाद। बीते शुक्रवार को अहमदाबाद के सिविल हॉस्पिटल में
सेक्स चेंज का ऑपरेशन कराने पहुंचा युवक कौन था? आखिर क्यों उसने लड़की
बनने की जिद ठानी? पुरुष से स्त्री बनने के लिए इसने क्या-क्या किया? यह
जानने के लिए दिव्यभास्करडॉटकॉम की टीम इस युवक से मुलाकात की।
बातचीत में पता चला कि इसके पीछे उसका दर्द था। वह विवाहित होने के
बाद भी अब तक सेक्स से वंचित है। इतना ही नहीं, अब वह पत्नी से इतना त्रस्त
हो चुका है कि उसने स्त्री बनकर रहने का दृढ़ निश्चय कर लिया है।
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