Why harshly punishing false accusors is a horrible idea

It seems like in every thread about someone being falsely accused of rape/domestic violence/whatever, the very top comment is always something along the lines of "She should get the same sentence he would've got!!!1!1!" That is absolutely the most retarded and counter-intuitive idea I've ever heard, and here's why.

Picture this, you're an adult female who got mad and falsely accused your husband of rape. Now the case has been going on for months, you've spent a considerable amount of time and money on the case, and it's just dragging on. You're bored. You don't have the fiery rage in you anymore that drove you to make the accusation initially, and even though you rationalize that he deserves it for some reason, somewhere deep inside you is telling you you're just wasting your time. So you decide, "Hey, maybe he didn't actually rape me, let me just end this so I can go to Chad's house and get railed". So you talk to your lawyer, and drop the case. Odds are, you won't face any punishment unless you're unlucky, because you were "traumatized" or whatever the court decides to believe. You're done, and now he's absolved as well.

Now, what if you have a 20 year prison sentence hanging over her head should you admit you weren't actually raped? Fuck. Looks like you're proceeding with the case. You might not be the brightest hen in the flock, but you know a missed evening is better than 20 years worth of missed evenings.

Women generally aren't logical creatures, they operate on emotions. Men are going to be falsely accused of rape because some women's pissed off regardless of the law. But court cases take a long time, her feelz are going to fluctuate. If she doesn't have anything stopping her from backing out gracefully, odds are she will sooner or later. If it comes down to a long ass prison sentence, however, she's going to just keep up the bullshit rather than bite the bullet and admit she's wrong. If she's gotta put him in jail to keep herself out, that's exactly what she's gonna do.

False accusations suck, reputations and lives are absolutely ruined by them. However, a lost reputation is still better than a prison sentence.

TL;DR: If a women doesn't have an easy way to get out of a false accusation, the only thing she's going to do is keep the accusation and put you in prison.