The Supreme Court of India has recently come out with an interesting ruling that extramarital affair of husband may not amount to cruelty on his part warranting criminal proceedings against him.

Justices Mukhopadhyaya and Misra have ruled that although immoral and illegal, extramarital affair by itself would not attract Section 498A IPC in the absence of acceptable evidence establishing high degree of cruelty that may drive the wife to commit suicide. A similar ruling had come out in 2013 when PM Rawal was acquitted by a bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Pinaki Chandra Ghose.

While the ruling may appear to be a little harsh to the women in bad marriages due to infidelity, it should be seen as a welcome step in our jurisprudence. The former Attorney General of India, Soli J Sorabjee has rightly observed that SC ruling does not hand out license for extramarital affairs.

Men may still be sued by their cheated wives on account of marital infidelity and divorce can be granted on this ground. What this ruling achieves, or at least aims to, is undermining the exaggerated importance given to sexual behaviour in the institution of marriage.

Marriage as an institution is being redefined in the contemporary Indian society. The couples are negotiating with the traditional ideas surrounding it while weighing in their individual concerns. Delinking extramarital affair and ‘cruelty,’ the apex court has given a legal thrust to the process of modernising marriage.

As I perceive at the moment, it will go a long way in establishing equality by ensuring that one partner is not unduly bogged down by harsh consequences should there be a breakdown in marriage. I also see it as empowering women by forcing them to think beyond the purity of nuptial bed.

If infidelity is not your thing, move out of the marriage by all means well compensated. I do not feel that it is worth giving up on life or committing suicide just because the husband develops intimate relations with another woman. There is still great scope for loosening up when it comes to marriage.

As established by noted psychologist Todd K. Shackelford in his 2001 paper ‘Self-esteem in Marriage,’ self-worth is often measured in terms of spousal fidelity. I see immense scope for violence, towards the partner or self, while getting into such a calculation. Any obsessive assessment of self, balancing on the slippery slope of others’ behaviour can only be hazardous to one’s mental and physical well-being.

It remains to be seen if the SC ruling results in courts honouring a cheated wife’s desire to exit a marriage with minimal strain. A swift and hassle-free grant of divorce is likely to reduce mental trauma that a bad marriage is wont to inflict.

It may be worth pondering in the end that letting fidelity of the partner, or the lack thereof, to chart the course of one’s life is naïve and counter-productive.

It amounts to being cruel to one’s own self.

Nishtha Gautam teaches in University of Delhi and writes regularly on issues pertaining to gender, culture, violence and military.