The Madras High Court’s suggestion that pre-marital potency tests be made compulsory has raised both medical and rights-based questions.
On Friday, Justice N. Kirubakaran of the Madurai Bench said the court would hold a special sitting on September 13 to decide whether a pre-marital clinical examination for the bride and the groom should be made mandatory. Part of the examination would be potency and frigidity tests.
Justice Kirubakaran quoted statistics from family courts to support his observation that impotency had become the third most cited reason for divorce.
The case proceedings have raised a question whether the move could constitute a serious infringement on the personal space of marriage and the privacy of individuals. Medical experts, on the other hand, feel potency tests for all could be impractical.
Sexologist D. Narayana Reddy says the concept of “impotency” itself is outdated. “The medical field no longer uses the term. We now call it sexual problems, and they are graded according to the phase in which they occur. The advances in science are so much that there is intervention available at every stage.”
The doctor says sexual problems, like erectile dysfunction, could also be temporary and could be influenced by such factors as stress and anxiety. “In lab conditions, many may be unable to perform the act. But that does not mean they are permanently incapable of sexual relationship,” he argues. Generally, a physical examination and a penile Doppler test that checks the blood flow to the organ are used to determine potency. The tests themselves may have adverse consequences.
For the woman, Dr. Reddy says, such tests would involve vaginal examination, still a social taboo. “The intention of the court is laudable, but this could be impractical.”
V. Suresh, general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, says insistence on potency and fertility tests would reiterate age-old notions that the end of marriage is procreation.
Also, Mr. Suresh says, given the “abysmal record” of monitoring mechanisms in the country, it has to be asked who will keep an eye on the institution that would implement the tests. “This is a clear infringement on personal liberty. In case, a person is found impotent, the law already has avenues to break the marriage. To divorce is a law-given right,” he points out.
However, lawyer Sudha Ramalingam says the judge has flagged an important issue. “There is a spurt in divorce cases because of impotency. Some of us have been insisting on pre-marital clinical examinations for long. Some deliberately hide medical disorders and get into marriage. The other person is grossly affected,” she says. But given that the potency tests are not foolproof, Ms. Sudha says, they should only be recommendatory and not compulsory.
