Why Should Men Marry?

This is a question which many young men have is that why should they marry?

The Rajya Sabha recently cleared The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 (“IrBM”) and the salient features of the bill are given below.

• A concept of irretrievable break-down of marriage has been introduced which provides another ground to the spouses for divorce
• The bill is gender biased as husbands donot have a right to oppose the divorce filed by the wife
• All the property of the husband that he currently owns and his ancestral property (inherited or inheritable) will be divided between the husband and the wife
• Men are still liable to pay maintenance and alimony to his wife even after property division as per various other statutes
• Other cases filed by the wife such as 498a, DV etc… will keep continuing even after divorce. IrBM the world over is treated as a ‘no-fault’ divorce where incompatibility between couples is the reason cited for separation, if this is the case then why are suits for domestic violence, 498a etc… allowed to continue

This law is giving yet another reason to men not to marry due to the gender biased provisions in the statute. In essence the reason not to marry may boil down to –

• A husband can not oppose divorce filed by his wife, whereas the wife can oppose the divorce filed by the husband
• A husband’s property which he might have earned before marriage, during marriage and also his ancestral property will be divided with his wife at the time of divorce. Wife’s property will not be divided with the husband
• Husbands rarely get the custody of children. Further, visitation rights are also not adhered to by the wives post divorce
• During marriage there is always the threat of domestic violence looming on the husband. As in the movie Minority Report where future crimes were punishable, so are the acts of domestic violence. As per Section 4 any domestic violence ‘likely to be committed’ is also covered
• The sword of 498a cases are always looming over the husband’s head. Any time a fabricated dowry case may be slapped
• Post divorce, even after sharing hard-earned property with the wife the husband is liable to maintain his wife
• Married men are 2 times more likely to commit suicides in India
• The work load of a married man increases post marriage as he is now liable to maintain his wife and has the responsibility of a primary breadwinner. As per the ‘CSO’s Women and Men in India, 2012, 14^th issue’ women spend about 2.1 hours per day on cooking, 1.1 hour on cleaning and 3.16 hours of taking care of children per day, totaling to 6.36 hours of daily work. Whereas men work atleast 9 hours in office and 0.32 hours taking care of children totaling to about 9.32 hours of daily work.

Do the risks / work above justify the benefits of marriage?

Home Page: Stand Up for a Cause…

The Fairer Criminals

There has been a lot of discussion recently that women are docile and the ‘abla naari’ who need protection from the demons on the streets called men. Having this ideology many gender biased laws were passed in recent times such as Domestic Violence Laws, Dowry Protection Laws, Sexual Harassment at Workplace Law and the recent IrBM.

All these laws were passed with a premise that women are the victims and need protection. The due checks and balances of even prosecution for false complaints were omitted in these laws and we have seen rampant misuse of the same.

We will discuss today if there has been ay structural change in the society over the past 10 years. We have used the NCRB Crime data from 2001 – 2010 for arrests made for serious crimes such as murder, dacoity, burglary, arson, kidnapping, thefts etc… The data for increase in arrests by police over the 10 year period is given below:

The Scorpion and the Frog

In kindergarten I had heard this story about a scorpion and a frog, an Aesop fable. Aesop was a slave who lived in the 5^th century BC who used to spread his wisdom by stories. This one particular story about a scorpion and frog goes something like:

A scorpion met a frog on a river bank and requested him to carry it across the river on his back. The frog refused stating that, how would he be sure that the scorpion would not sting him. The scorpion responded as they would be in the river, if he stung the frog, he would die too. The frog agreed and took the scorpion on his back and they started crossing the river.

In the middle of the river, the scorpion stung the frog. The frog got paralyzed due to the venom in the sting and started drowning. The frog just asked one question, “Why?”

To this the scorpion replied, “Because it is in my nature….”

Women Voters – Power of 49

I just saw the Tata Tea ‘Power of 49’ advertisement. The ad suggested that women are 49% of the voter base and have the power to change the election results. The idea seems interesting, let’s analyze the voter data of the past elections.

In the past general elections, as per the Election Commission of India, the percentage voters of India were  –

Year	Men (% votes)	Women (% votes)	Source
1999	40.01%	59.99%	[i]
2004	41.93%	58.07%	[ii]
2009	45.8%	54.2%	[iii]

As can be seen above, the majority of the voters were women which is as high as about 60% in the year 1999.

Therefore, as per the above data, women have higher political representation and it is seen that a dominant group is one which has more political representation as they control the law making in a democracy.

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[i] http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/StatisticalReports/LS_1999/Vol_I_LS_99.pdf page 144

[ii] http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/StatisticalReports/LS_2004/Vol_I_LS_2004.pdf page 167

[iii] http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/archiveofge2009/Stats/VOLI/08_VotersInformation.pdf

Please Note: If you have any concerns with any part of this article, do feel free to comment. Your concerns will be appropriately addressed and/or modifications to the article will be made.

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Moral Turpitude – Should an employer assume the role of Moral Police?

As per the Black’s Law dictionary, Moral Turpitude means: ‘Conduct that is contrary to justice, honesty, or morality. In the area of legal ethics, offenses involving moral turpitude such as fraud or breach of trust. Also termed moral depravity.

Moral turpitude means, in general, shameful wickedness so extreme a departure from ordinary standards of honest, good morals, justice, or ethics as to be shocking to the moral sense of the community. It has also been defined as an act of baseness, vileness, or depravity in the private and social duties which one person owes to another, or to society in general, contrary to the accepted and customary rule of right and duty between people.’

Reservation in Promotions

In 1992, the Supreme Court of India, in the case of Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, directed that:

• Reservation under Article 16(4) should in no case exceed 50%
• No reservation can be made for any class other than backward class
• Reservation in promotions is constitutionally impermissible as once the disadvantage is removed (by providing reservation to a job), then reservation in promotions could be taken as treating equals unequally
• Creamy layer among backward class should be excluded from the reservation

In 1995, the 77^th amendment to the constitutions was made thereby inserting article 16(4A) which stated that “Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision  for  reservation  in matters of promotion to any  class   or classes  of  posts  in the services under the State in favour  of   the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes which, in the opinion of the State,  are  not  adequately  represented in the  services   under  the State.”, thereby constitutionally validating reservation in promotions.

False Rape Charges on the Rise

A resent news article titled ‘False cases behind Delhi’s tag of rape capital: Court’, stated that a 75 year old man was accused of raping his maid servant was acquitted. As per the judgment, a frail old man of 75 years was accused of rape and had to suffer 6 months of jail time before being granted bail. The main reason for slapping the false rape was to merely extract money from the man.

Based on the lady’s complaint, the old man was sent for potency test wherein it was opined that there is nothing to suggest that he cannot perform sexual intercourse.

Truth about India’s Gender Ratio

We have heard a lot of discussions in the media about the skewed gender / sex ratio of India. Certain media reports and renowned economists have treated this as an elaborate scheme of female foeticide. Today let’s delve deeper into the gender statistics of India.

It is stated that many girls are aborted in the womb due to which our sex ratio is low and not equal to 1. On the face of it their reasoning seems to have some weight ‘BUT’ there is no research or report to show that the human sex ratio is equal to 1. In fact the natural human sex ratio is 1.06 males per female[i]. Converting it to a number which we all know is 940 females per 1000 males. So the natural sex ratio is not 1000 females per 1000 males but hovers around 940 females per 1000 males.

Many factors such as age of the parents, their environmental exposure, multiple births, birth order, stress and stage of ovulation cycle decides whether the X or the Y chromosome will fertilize the egg[ii].

The gender ratio of India is 943 females per 1000 males[iii] which is above the natural sex ratio for humans. If there was rampant female foeticide then this ratio ought to have been lower, which we clearly see is not the case.

So we come to 2 conclusions / hypothesis –

1. There is no rampant female foeticide
2. If we believe that there is rampant female feticide then the census date for 2011 is incorrect and the government needs to verify the census process

Which one is the correct hypothesis you decide…

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[i] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC102777/

[ii] http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/12/3120.full

[iii] Census of India, 2011 – Executive Summary (point 6) – http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/PCA/PCA_Highlights/pca_highlights_file/India/4Executive_Summary.pdf

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Because I am a Boy …

It is a strange topic relevant to the strange times we live in. It is said that boys are well cared for but that may be a myth. Since birth, as compared to their fairer counterparts, they are treated with an iron hand in the garb of making men out of them. In school, if found to be part of any mischief, the corporal punishment meted to them is way higher than their counterparts. Remember during school, it was only the boys who were made ‘murgas’ or ‘duck walks’ as part of punishment as opposed to the punishment of ‘standing in a corner’ for their fairer counterparts.

Process and Method of Change – Part 2

 

This is the second part to Process and Method of Change. The part 1 can be found here.

4) The Education of an Organizer: Saul discusses what makes the person emerge as an organizer from the group. Organizers should be flexible and adaptable and their experiences should be their teacher. Organizers should be flexible depending upon the audience they are dealing with and a lot of this comes from the experience and the motivational level they have. There are certain traits found in all successful organizers –

• Curiosity: They are inherently curious beings constantly searching for patterns. The prime function of an organizer is to ask difficult questions and challenge status quo.  These questions bring out the internal revolution in people in the open political arena.