Sexual exploitation on false promise of marriage: Why it's rising

Few issues expose the collision between modern dating and older social contracts as sharply as “sex on promise of marriage.”

- TDG NETWORK

The allegation is familiar: a relationship begins consensually, sex follows, and the woman later claims her consent was secured by a promise of marriage that was never intended to be kept. The harm is often compounded by social stigma, threats, and financial dependence; the legal challenge is to distinguish exploitation from relationships that simply ended.

Indian courts have long treated certain forms of deception as capable of vitiating consent. The doctrine typically travels through the idea of consent under “misconception of fact”: if consent was given because the woman believed a specific fact (such as an imminent marriage), and that belief was induced by deception, the law may treat the sexual act differently from ordinary consensual sex. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly insisted on a sharp test: a mere breach of promise is not automatically rape. What matters is whether the promise was false from the beginning—made in bad faith, as a device to secure sexual access—and whether the woman's consent flowed from that deception.