Abstract
‘Promise to marry cases’ are those in which a victim is deceived into having sex with the defendant, based on a dishonest promise of marriage. Rape laws in India are designed to punish such defendants. These cases represent a significant proportion of rape cases in the legal system but remain under-researched. Drawing from postcolonial feminism and intersectionality theory, this article provides a socio-legal exposition of ‘promise to marry’ cases. This analysis is based on the total population of judgments in promise to marry cases, which were issued by Delhi trial courts from January to June in 2014 and 2016. It is found that courts propagate a heteronormative, intracaste, intracommunal construction of marriage while enforcing seemingly neutral rape laws. Given the prejudicial application of law, it is concluded that the use of criminal law in promise to marry cases is inappropriate.
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