India, April 7 -- The Supreme Court has issued a stark reminder that patriarchal control over women's lives continues to endure, often invisibly, but pervasively, even as India has enacted laws and delivered a series of progressive judgments aimed at securing gender equality.

A bench of justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh said that despite constitutional guarantees and sustained institutional efforts, "patriarchy still permeates the everyday," raising a troubling question for society at large: Why does control over women's bodies, choices, and lives persist so deeply?

The court made these observations while affirming the life sentence of a man convicted of murdering his wife in Rajasthan in 2011 by setting her ablaze. It said the...