Ahiliya's story

I have actually read something very similar to it in one of Hindi author's (Narendra Kohli) book. He too showed that Gautam did not distrust his wife and had implicit faith in her. The difference in your interpretation and his was that he showed that Indra was successful in his mission. He too showed Ahiliya was not tricked and knew it was Indra. So it was Indra raping her which is true regardless of whether Ahiliya mistook him for Gautam or not.

Also in that version, Gautam did not want to give up Ahiliya but decided to do so after consultations with Janak who too was helpless against the society. They had a small son Shatanand whom Ahiliya and Gautam wanted to protect. So they decided jointly to take this decision for her to live in isolation away from the society. Also Ahiliya wanted Gautam to not be able to destroy his career as he was very bright. Janak supported Gautam in punishing Indra by banning his worship in havans etc from that time onwards. Also Janak decided to make Shatanand his Rajguru as providing some sort of compensation to Ahiliya.

Finally, Ram who was fearless came there and was able to provide status to Ahiliya by declaring her a pure woman who was never at fault. Gautam of course accepted her unconditionally as he had always wanted to do that. This made Ram even more famous as this came after killing Tadaka and Subahu.

So Indra and the society was the culprit in that version. Janak and Gautam were shown helpless against the society and Ram was shown as this young prince who was ahead of his times in providing justice.

Interesting that case was the same but decisions were different for Sita and ahilya due to Ram's status difference in both times. During Ahilya's time ,He was a free bird but at the time of sita ,He was bound .

@Sonia, Ahiliya was a true victim in everything. Not only was she raped, but she was also blamed with it. Even though Indra got punished, but she got a bigger punishment for no fault of hers. That's why Ram giving her status and dignity back was such an admirable act.

@Ekta: Probably that is what happened. As a prince, he was more free. As a king, he got bound by conventions and had to think about consequences of his actions. He also gave himself almost the same suffering. He too refused to marry anybody else and used Sita's idol in his most important puja - Ashwmedha Yagya, thus demonstrating to everyone that Sita remains the most important person in his life. So he remained loyal to Sita all his life.