The law is positively biased towards women, from the availability of reservations to the constitutional provisions. The laws regarding abuse of women ranging from sexual to economic does not acknowledge the abuse that a man faces, showing a disparity in the legal system. Albeit women are the greater number of victims compared to men, that statistic is slowly dissipating in the light of false allegations against innocent men. The rate of false allegations after the fallout of a marriage, after a woman feels scorned, is continuously on the rise in India. The law, and judiciary system doesn’t provide protection of men from these shaming allegations leading to drastic measures in the form of suicide.

On social media, videos show females may misunderstand an accidental brush of the shoulder as eve-teasing, and some may go as far as purposely scaring a man that if he doesn’t pay money she will take him to jail regarding the same. Some women have started using extortion in many forms, the end result is to be provided money. Under the Marriage Amendment Act (2000) a woman is to be paid maintenance after her divorce from her husband, highly educated women tend to hide that they are currently employed yet still demand maintenance. If not provided then the husband can face criminal indictment.

The statute of limitations for filing a complaint of dowry does not exist, so even after 20 years of marriage a wife can file a case of dowry on her husband and family. Albeit this may seem to be a women-friendly provision, it is too friendly. The wife does not have to provide proof of giving dowry and the husband has no means of proving his innocence, he is deemed guilty without a trial or hearing. There have been reports where a female has filed an FIR on the entire family, including a 2 month old infant. The abuse of a system which was amended to protect and provide for women has been turned into a battleground for revenge.

While going through a divorce the greatest difficulty lies in who the child will stay with, the mother or father. Our cultural wisdom would tell us that a child is better off with the mother, the law also supports this ideology. A child below the age of 11 years is granted to the mother, many fathers feel the anguish of separation from their child. A trend common in Indian couples in the U.K. is that the mother leaves the father with her child as a new method of extortion, getting her monetary demands fulfilled and holding their child hostage away from the purview of the father.

Some organisations are doing commendable job to help the men caught in such cases. One such organisation with 30,000 members globally work in cohesion with victims to provide each individual an opportunity to prove their innocence in the court of law. Although their perspective on marital rape in marriage is horrendous, the pro-bono legal advice they provide to male victims of the Marriage Amendment Act (2000)is commendable. The weekly meetings, where victims speak of their troubles, are testimony to the mass effect one FIR has on an entire family. While filing a complaint women tend to harness the power of non-bailable arrests thereby ensuring that the entire family goes to jail. They are also witness to individuals who have lost all hope due to the public shame and humility they and their families have had to go through resulting in suicide. With their help many men have fought to urge to relinquish their lives and found a support system, albeit with a lot of setbacks and anguish.

Many people might jeer and jest at this reversal of situations and say, “Men deserve this treatment, after centuries of patriarchal dominance they are getting back what they give.” If you look up close to the individuals who are falsely accused of a crime they haven’t committed the situation is more serious than thought of, a man loses his job, his respect and dignity are torn away, the entire family is ashamed due to public persecution by officials, and then there are the lingering court cases that never seem to end and are near impossible to win. It is a tight rope that the country is walking on where the crime against women is high and the crime perpetrated by women is also on the rise, a balance has to be reached to ensure that equality is not manhandled and reaches it’s true definition by merging with humanism.