Deutsche Welle

A colonial-era law that punished adultery with jail time was ruled unconstitutional on Thursday by India's top court. The law was in place for more than a century and dictated that any man who slept with a married woman, without her husband's permission, could go to prison for up to 5 years.

"Thinking of adultery from a point of view of criminality is a retrograde step," the five-judge bench of the Supreme Court said in what was a unanimous decision.

The law was challenged in front of the court on the grounds that it was arbitrary and discriminated women, as they could not file a complaint or be held liable under the archaic law.

'Man is the seducer'

Government lawyers had argued that overturning the law threatened the institution of marriage, and caused harm to children and families.

But the 158-year-old law deprived women of dignity and individual choice and gave "license to the husband to use women as a chattel," the court retorted.

"It disregards the sexual autonomy which every woman possesses and denies agency to a woman in a matrimonial tie," said Supreme Court Justice D. Y. Chandrachud. "She is subjugated to the will of her spouse."

In 1954, the court had upheld adultery as a crime on the grounds that "it is commonly accepted that it is the man who is the seducer and not the woman."

"Man being the seducer and women being the victim no longer exits. Equality is the governing principle of a system. The husband is not the master of the wife," the verdict added.

The court also emphasized that extramarital affairs, while still a valid ground for divorce, were a private matter between adults.

Overturning Victorian laws

The ruling was the second time in one month that India's top court overturned a Victorian-era law concerning the sexual choices of the country's citizens. Earlier this month, a ban on gay sex introduced by British rulers in 1861 was also overturned.

Section 377 had become "a weapon for harassment" of homosexuals and "history owes an apology to the members of this community and their families," the court concluded.

Prashant Bhushan, a lawyer in the Supreme Court, lauded the rulings, saying these landmark decisions on gay sex and adultery had shown the judges' "adherence to liberal values and the constitution."

This article was originally published on DW.com. Its content is separate from USA TODAY.