Sections 3.3.2 and 3.3.3 allow bogus Content-Length?

The language in RFC 7230 section 3.3.2 is extremely non-commital about 
whether Content-Length needs to be correct or not.
I'm currently having a dispute about this with someone who quoted these 
sections at me as being proof that you can use any value for C-L 
regardless of the body length.
I think it could be a lot more forcefully written
Or is the person correct and we don't need to have C-L match the body 
length?
In this particular case the discussion is around request messages.
Adrien