India bid good-bye yesterday to yet another archaic, colonial law – Section 497 of the India Penal Code, which criminalized adultery and robbed married women of sexual autonomy.

“Curtailing the sexual autonomy of a woman or presuming the lack of consent once she enters a marriage is antithetical to Constitutional values,” the court ruled.

According to the previously accepted law, if a woman had an extramarital affair without her husband’s knowledge and consent, the man with whom she had sexual relations could be punished with a fine, imprisonment or both. The law denied women the same right in a reverse scenario, in which a husband had extramarital relations.

“Any provision of law affecting individual dignity and equality of women invites wrath of constitution. It’s time to say that husband is not the master of wife. Legal sovereignty of one sex over other sex is wrong,” said Chief Justice Misra, who was part of the five-judge bench that overturned the 158-year-old law.

The bench further struck down Section 198(2) in The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which stated that in the absence of the husband, the caregiver of the adulterous wife could file a complaint on behalf of the husband.

The ruling smacks down the Government’s tepid attempt at equality last month, when it recommended preserving the law but making it gender neutral (in the name of marital sanctity; decriminalizing adultery would threaten “Indian ethos,” it argued, because apparently bad marriages are core societal values).

The ruling — with its explicit focus on the concept of sexual consent and agency — appears to open the door to recognizing marital rape as a crime. Some among the Indian Twitterverse seemed to get it:

377- check
Adultery- check
Next step: make marital rape a crime

— Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) September 27, 2018

I welcome the Supreme Court decision decriminalizing #Adultery. A very progressive judgement.#Section497 discriminated against both men & women; treating women as properties of husbands and men as sole adulterers, giving women the leeway.

Desh Badal Raha Hai!#AdulteryVerdict

— Jagrati Shukla (@JagratiShukla29) September 27, 2018

Others … did not.

I am seriously confused here. How is adultery a good thing? 🙄

What have I missed?

— Êllə (@tweet2el) September 27, 2018

I am laughing out loud today

It is MEN who have been accused, tried and punished on charges of #Adultery or #497 IPC for 158 freaking years in “REAL” !

But feminists and women’s rights activists are hailing the judgment because the law was “anti women” in “DEFINITION”

Hadd Hai

— Deepika Bhardwaj (@DeepikaBhardwaj) September 27, 2018

We’ll explain later, kids. Too much to celebrate right now!