If thousands of years ago our ancestors could devise a pleasant way to overcome the shyness of two strangers sharing a bed with sexual intent, then surely the wisdom of authority should decree that the way out cannot be drunken rape, argues theatre director and actress Jalabala Vaidya

Husbands may be harassed if marital rape (is) criminalised,” said the Central Government in an affidavit submitted before the Delhi High Court on August 29, 2017. “It may destabilise the institution of marriage.”

Vatsayana’s Kamasutra was written probably in the fourth century AD, in the prosperous Gupta period city of Pataliputra, (today’s Patna) by a learned man of letters, a Brahmin. He basically compiled the information in the earlier Kama Shastra, which was written when the Artha Shastra and the Dharma Shastra became important treatises of politics and economy. He wove them all into an authoritative work, meant to instruct adolescents and young men from upper class, upper caste families in the art of living, to be followed by a civilised and refined citizen.

Vatsayana’s instructions on marriage — its arrangement, its consummation, and its lifelong practice — are a very important part of his treatise, and going by later commentaries, were followed by most people of reasonable means all over the country, and have become an integral and continuous part of tradition. The arts played an important role, especially music, dancing, painting, the theatre and literature. In fact, the list of arts given in Vatsayana’s Kamasutra is often used in scholarly works about ancient India.

But our concern at this time is marital rape, which, if it is forbidden or restricted, is likely to destroy the institution of marriage in India of the 21st century.

Chapter 2 of Vatsayana’s Kamasutra is titled Kanya Visrambhana: After the marriage ceremony on the first night, the couple must avoid a spicy dinner and partake of food with plenty of milk, honey and ghee. Then they must sleep on the ground on a comfortable bed.  Vatsayana favours the couple to both be virgins, the girl about three years younger. The boy begins by chatting to her. If they already know each other it is easy, or at least if they know someone in common — a cousin, a friend. If they are strangers it is hard on these two young people. But both know what marriage means and curiosity is a help.

They also know that no ultimate sex, copulation, can happen in the first three nights, nor first thing on the fourth morning. They must wait for the fourth night. So with that fear of the unknown set at rest for the girl, they try to get to know each other. Chatting, maybe one-sided at first, touching. Snuggling closer, but not below the waist, on the first night. And it may not be just the girl who is frightened. The boy, too, may be overcome by shyness.

To overcome this unfamiliarity, during the day she dresses attractively, tries to help in the house, sits down to meals with him, attends any entertainment his family may have organised for their wedding guests and takes part in the pujas with perfumes and flowers. They both grow accustomed to each other in these daytime activities. Now they have something to talk about after they go to bed.

How they progress on the second night has the possibility, if the boy makes no move, for the girl to wonder if he is a homosexual or of the third gender. If nothing happens for those first three nights, she can go back to her parent’s house and precipitate a crisis.

But nearly always this does not happen; they both are interested in each other and the cuddling is accompanied by jokes, and gets more and more intimate. By the third night, after another family day, filled with household members, family, old friends and servants, who may tease them, it may seem difficult to hold off till the fourth night.

Vatsayana goes into great detail as to how their lovemaking, despite its restrictions, proceeds. But there is no need for us to follow the options he presents for the couple, specially the boy. We need to return to our time.

Importantly spokespeople for the government must realise that we cannot live in British-imposed Victorian morality, where sex is an unmentionable. If thousands of years ago our ancestors could devise a pleasant way to overcome the shyness of two strangers sharing a bed with sexual intent, then surely the wisdom of authority should decree that the way out cannot be drunken rape.

Such marital rapes must be condemned, punished but also counselled. We must be flooded with the history of how an ancient and very civilised society dealt with a sensitive human situation in which not just the couple but their families played an important part. We have agreed to the western idea of honeymoon, but may be the Kamasutra way is better.