A 10-Year-Old Was Raped to Death on Her Wedding Night by Her 30-Years-Old Husband
And it changed the history of consent laws forever
Phulmoni Dasi was a ten-year-old Indian girl who died on the first night (after having sexual intercourse with her husband) after her marriage to a 30-year-old man called Hari Mohan Mait in 1889. India remembers this dark incident of the colonial era as The Phulmoni Dasi Rape Case.
Once this case came to light, it triggered several legal reforms and opened gates into communication around the subsequent legal age of marriage, age of consent, and even marital rape.
It took a brutal rape following death (or, as I may dare to say, murder ) of an innocent girl for the long asleep system and society to wake up and change something which should never have been a discussion in the first place.
Timeline of Events
Phulmoni Dasi was a Bengali girl living in the Eastern region of India. She was married off to her 30-year-old husband in an arranged marriage by the will of her parents, and later the young child-wife died after her husband tried to consummate their marriage.
The trial and the disturbing autopsy report
The case went into litigation in the Calcutta Sessions Court on 6 July 1890, and it was called Empress v. Hari Mohan Maiti. During the prosecution, the victim’s mother provided testimony against the husband of her dead daughter and became the torchbearer in providing her daughter justice.
This was registered as of the most frightening cases of marital rape. To date, the autopsy of Phulmoni Dasi is studied by doctors and legal reviewers and researchers as a case study into the horrendous times and practices.
The facts were that the child bride died due to excessive bleeding when her husband embarked to consummate their marriage despite his wife being eleven years old and too young to understand the concept of sex or even marriage.
The autopsy report clearly indicated an injured vagina as the cause of death. Her body was found in a dreadful state and in a pool of blood; it became an obsessive point of focus and the sight to understand the incident and some highly disturbing details were bought up.
“The girl was heard calling out, bapre! mare! And when the women went to the room and to the place where she was, she and the accused were found alone in the room. She was found covered with blood, and he was found with blood on his cloth.” — Empress v. Hari Mohan Maiti
“It shows that she had not attained the size which was requisite to make contact between male and female reasonably suitable. Her organs, such as the ovary, were not developed, that menstruation had not commenced and that the external signs of puberty were not present; and you will find there is no trace in the evidence of any sign of puberty except the single one of partially developed breasts, which the medical men say is a sign that the stage of puberty is approaching or commencing, but not that it is attained.” — Empress v. Hari Mohan Maiti
The mockery of the Justice system and acquittal of the husband
The victim’s husband was convicted under the Indian Penal Code for “causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others.” But Under an exception introduced to the IPC in 1860, sex with one’s wife was not considered rape. And hence the husband was later acquitted of the rape charge because laws omitted marital rape from the comprehension of punitive law, and the section was completely exempted. As Phulmoni was of legal age and wedded to her husband, he was sentenced to only 12 months of hard labour.
Reforms
On 9 January 1891, Lord Lansdowne, the Viceroy of India, introduced a bill before the Council of India that was then called the “Age of Consent Bill.” The bill sought to amend Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), where the previous age of consent was set at ten years in 1860. After the bill was ratified on 29 March 1891, Section 376 included sex with a girl below the age of 12, even if the person is the perpetrator’s wife, as rape.
The unfortunate custom of child brides is still actively prevailing in most parts of India and other uneducated societies across the globe. I can list dozens of cases scattered all across the national daily highlighting minors’ sale and purchase into prostitution and forced marriages. And yet, nothing changes.
There have been numerous attempts and petitions filled in order to criminalise marital rape, and the arguments presented in defence disgust and embrace me at the same time.
The following statement was made by the Former Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in April 2019 in the account of his views on criminalising martial Rape:
“I do not think that marital rape should be regarded as an offence in India, because it will create absolute anarchy in families, and our country is sustaining itself because of the family platform which upholds family values,” — Misra
I don’t know what to expect from the country’s judicial system where the sitting judge suggests a rape victim to marry her culprit and grant him forgiveness.
We have failed to serve justice to Phulmoni Dasi, and there are hundreds and thousands like her who will remain unheard and synonymous with injustice.
It is simple:
Rapes me 🥀
Rapes me not 🌹
Rapes me 🥀
Rapes me not 🌹
Enough is enough; recognise marital rape.
When a girl says no, it means NO.
Thank you
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