Enigmatic Sex Laws of Pakistan

Abstract

Even though Article 18 of the Constitution empowers the legislature to regulate only a ‘trade’ or a ‘profession’ by a licensing system, people generally see Nikah Nama (marriage certificate) as a license to have sex and produce babies. Perhaps Pakistanis generally view sex as a trade and producing babies as a profession. Seeing marriage as a license is not that unreasonable after all. Marriage makes a lot of sense as a license to have sex and make babies. This means that sex is a state controlled act; it is allowed only with a permit (called marriage certificate) from the state, without which it is a crime, and you a criminal.

Keywords: Sex, Marriage, Law, Constitution, Pakistan

JEL Classification: K00, K10, K14, K19