The public humiliation of a man and a woman by stripping and beating them was a punishment adopted in a village in Udaipur district for adultery. This is not the first incident and sadly, neither will it be the last.
I am not going to join the progressive clichés of “what a barbaric thing to happen in the 21st century” or “barbarism, inhuman treatment of two lovers which prove that we are still a feudal society” and so on.
Adultery indeed is a grave crime. Isn’t it painful and humiliating to find out that someone you love has been cheating on you all this time? Isn’t a deterrent needed, something which can give justice to the aggrieved party, regardless of whether its husband or the wife?
But the bigger problem, which causes these incidents, is the definition of manhood defined by tribal culture and conservative societies.
The infidelity of the wife raises questions about the manhood of the husband. He is a coward if he lets her escape with anything less than dozens of mutilating scars or a few broken bones. He has to reclaim his honour, to wash his face clean which has been blackened by the accusations of his jaat, an Indian community and biraadari, brotherhood.
Surely, you aren’t man enough if your wife has to quench her thirst elsewhere, the honourable jaat, biradari sniggers, “thoo hai teri zindagi par” (we spit on your very existence). The man who is having the time of his life with your wife is an insult to your masculinity. Don’t be a namard, a man who is impotent, by letting this bastard escape.
Can we deal with adultery like adults?
