India, Sept. 10 -- The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to explicate its stand on marital rape. It remains to be seen whether the Centre maintains the position it took in a 2017 affidavit filed by the home affairs ministry in the Delhi High Court, which was hearing petitions on the same issue - that while men who force themselves on their wives should face "penal consequences", punishing them for rape would "severely impact the conjugal relationship" and "have a far-reaching effect on the institution of marriage." To be sure, the problem of non-consensual sexual intercourse within marriage won't stop existing even if we don't call it rape. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2013 - it acknowledged that marital rape was a form of abuse, ...