Children and right to life

 

Thank you Archanaji,

Suppose a pregnancy occurs on account of faliure of male contraception. As per MTP act, termination can be proceeded in such cases. However following this pregnancy, wife does not want termination, yet husband does. Is this mental cruelty to husband if pregnancy not terminated? Under MTP only woman's consent is mandatory. Now if they divorce later who bears this child's maintenance?

@bhima - good question!

If husband proves mental and /or physical cruelty by wife and/ or wife's family members what is its effect on future maintenance? What is its effect on child custody and child maintenance? What other legal actions can husband take, once he proves such cruelty? What happens to interim given under PWDVA/CrPC 125 etc? What happens to protection order?

In Other words, is husband  expected to maintain a wife, who was cruel to him?

Bearing the child is the labor pain borne by woman not by man. So whether to give birth to it or not is her choice not that of husband. Hence if a wife says I can't bear it, it is humane for husband to consider her plea on humanitarian grounds and if she wishes that I want a child, that also is humane for husband to consider her plea to honor nature's pleasure. Husband has no right to interfere in her decision making as to whether she wants to give birth to child or not.

Relationship between wife and husband is not "official" relationship which is guided by laws, rules and regulations, it goes with mutual understanding.

Originally posted by :chandrasekhar.7203@ gmail.com
"	Bearing the child is the labor pain borne by woman not by man. So whether to give birth to it or not is her choice not that of husband. Hence if a wife says I can't bear it, it is humane for husband to consider her plea on humanitarian grounds and if she wishes that I want a child, that also is humane for husband to consider her plea to honor nature's pleasure. Husband has no right to interfere in her decision making as to whether she wants to give birth to child or not.	"

 That is not the question asked!

What a woman does with her baby is indeed her business. However my specific question is-if husband wants it terminated and wife wants to keep it, It is indeed her prerogative to do so. However the situation would be OK if it is wife who would bear the expenses incurred in raising this child. However the reality is that husband will be saddled with the responsibility. This is affecting his rights and puts a burden on him for actions and options exercised by wife and against his desire.

The question is; Is the wife required to raise this child by herself-in the event of divorce. Even if not divorced- is it OK to saddle the husband with additional responsibility of raising a child, who he wanted terminated, in the first place? Maybe the wife's decision in pursuing with the child bearing may be the cause for divorce!

Raising the child is anything but child's play!

Originally posted by :chandrasekhar.7203@ gmail.com
"	Relationship between wife and husband is not "official" relationship which is guided by laws, rules and regulations, it goes with mutual understanding.	"

 Dear Sir,

Unfortunately, not all marriages are fruitful/ successful. The entire family law forum is dedicated to what to do with failed marriages! Divorces occur when understanding fails or disagreement prevails. The questions asked are very clear.

Infact saptapadi is the rules and regulation, rights and responsibility of each spouse in a marriage. Unfortunately HMA does not reflect that!

This is all westernized thinking pattern. Whether the responsibility of child is yours or mine, whether the choice and decision of giving birth to child is yours or mine etc. was not there when contraceptives and family planning surgeries were not in use in the country. Nobody thought in these lines it was construed as joint responsibility. Wife has her duties at home that she used to fulfill towards children as a house wife and husband has his duties towards wife and children as bread earner. OK, you may say this is all medieval thinking, now situation is changed wife is educated she is going out to work and make money hence you need to think different way. Things may have changed, but you see when man was sole bread earner and wife was giving birth to 5,10 or 15 children (because no way to avoid giving birth to children medical science did not develop) he had no thoughts of who will bear the cost of children. Now when wife is also able to contribute to family and also in a situation where couple is giving birth to not more than two why man has become so narrow-minded that he started questioning, who will bear expenses on child if you give birth to him?

And also one must be aware of social realities of India. India is not this forum and a few husbands who are harrassed by educated wives claiming maintenance despite doing jobs or despite having education intentionally, deliberately sitting at home and extract money from husbands using law of land to their advantage. Those who approach court are not even 0.5% of the women population in India. The social reality of India is when men come home having drunk all the money he earned pulling rickshaw and doing labor work, it is the wife who spends on children with her hard earned money. You go and see this reality in any basti where people live under poverty line. Laws are made for them but unfortunately they are being used only by a section of population (less than 0.5%) who can afford to buy justice from courts spending money on lawyers. Thousands of families are there where husband had thrown away his family and wife took care of children and brought them up with her hard earned money doing labor work. It is very easy for a man to throw away his children, but not so easy for a woman to abandon her children if one is not aware of this social reality of India then no one can say anything.

As women have by and large proved that if husband abandons children they can take care of them, the question of who has to bear the expenses of child if wife gives birth to child need not be discussed. The social reality suggests that if a husband remains irresponsible towards child, the wife herself will take care of child by working. So there is no use discussing who shall take care of child's expenses after he is born. Laws favoring women are made in India keeping this social reality in view.

Originally posted by :chandrasekhar.7203@ gmail.com
"	As women have by and large proved that if husband abandons children they can take care of them, the question of who has to bear the expenses of child if wife gives birth to child need not be discussed. The social reality suggests that if a husband remains irresponsible towards child, the wife herself will take care of child by working. So there is no use discussing who shall take care of child's expenses after he is born. Laws favoring women are made in India keeping this social reality in view.	"

 That is exactly the point. Women can earn and raise their children. It happens all the time in lower socio economic strata-where women take care of themselves.

What then prevents women who are educated from doing the same? Education is supposed to help them earn and support themselves. Although it is commonly argued that the laws are meant to protect these downtrodden women, laws, in fact, do not help the lower social strata woman who is uneducated and poor-because her husband is a dud and drunkard-he has no money to begin with! What can courts get him to do? Throw him in jail? Would he quit drinking? The reality is the lower strata society  wife doesn't care about him-in fact she doesn't want him to get in her way and her taking care of her children. She doen't depend on the government/ laws. She doesn't need them.

These laws have only helped educated middle class,/ upper class or upper middle class women who are misusing these laws under the garb of women empowerment! Note that these middle class women are not married to uneducated drunks but mostly educated and hard working husbands who are living a decent life. They are using the lower socio-economic women as a canard to support and sustain these laws that they are misusing! The 'dhanda'/industry survives because of this! There is no money in poor uneducated women! The poor uneducated woman are used (misused really) by the educated, middle class/upper middle class/ upper class women  to sustain this 'dhandha'. That is the reality!

These haphazard laws are creating social unrest, fear and divisiveness amongst the classes most affected by this i.e middle and upper midlle class.

Indian society is severely influenced by western culture. In an era of 498a, PWDVA, divorce, maintenance and child custody every husband needs to worry about who pays for the child! In the past fathers didn't have to worry about not seeing their children. They didn't fear children taken away from them.They didn't need to think about divorce, maintenance etc. Today they need to think about divorce etc.That is the reality.Society of the past had a different dynamics, different set of rules they played under. But today the society is undergoing transformation-different rules are being made and people are forced to adapt and play under these rules. People thus are evolving different thinking, different strategies etc to survive in this new environment.

The question still remains-why should a husband pay for wife's choices? This is very relevant in the new rules imposed on the society.

Mr. Bhalla using same words that society had used from times immemorial like husband, wife and marriage, you cannot invent new rules, customs for society.  If you want to propose a new social order, you can propose for the country but don't call them husband, wife and marriage.  YOu can call them "Gusband", "Bife" and "Garriage" instead of "husband", "wife" and "marriage", for the social order that you wish to invent and impose on society!

Originally posted by :chandrasekhar.7203@ gmail.com
"	Mr. Bhalla using same words that society had used from times immemorial like husband, wife and marriage, you cannot invent new rules, customs for society.  If you want to propose a new social order, you can propose for the country but don't call them husband, wife and marriage.  YOu can call them "Gusband", "Bife" and "Garriage" instead of "husband", "wife" and "marriage", for the social order that you wish to invent and impose on society!	"

 Chandrasekhar-I am not inventing anything. You seem to be stuck in the past and nostalgic about 'good old days' when men and women got along just fine. But then you must have missed the part where feminsim came into being. The feminists are taking women to their 'promised' land. Marriage, husband wife etc are collateral damage of the process.