Until very recently, it was not considered a crime if a man forced his wife to have sex with him.

What's your views on this? Until very recently, it was not considered a crime if a man forced his wife to have sex with him. The right of men to sexual access to their partner was considered absolute, and only relatively recently have men been prosecuted for raping their wives.
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Most Helpful Guys

  • i'd imagine it is impossible to prove. That anyone successfully has is a little alarming: I've been accused of raping girls I've never even met (fortunately, no one took them seriously except my parents). To think I would have to fear such accusations, and possibly be jailed with what is inherently circumstantial evidence, all on the word of a girl I marry is very depressing. There's an expression "I'd rather see 100 guilty men walk free than one innocent man imprisoned." I'm a big fan of this expression, because with my luck I would be the innocent guy in question.

    That said, rape in any circumstance is one of the worst things a person can do to another person. I think it is one of the very few crimes in which a swift execution is justified. Lethal injection is too soft. A hanging is probably a bit too much, but I suppose a beheading is 'just right.'

    That said, what kind of a person would rather their spouse go to jail or be executed instead of having sex with them? Wouldn't it be easier, and safer, to just get a divorce? What's in the plus column of getting raped and sending them to prison instead?

    I don't know... there's a lot of ambiguity in this, which I suppose could be one of the many contributing factors as to why it hasn't really gotten a lot of attention until recently (yes, a patriarchal society is certainly a main contributing factor too).

    • The onus of proof is on the male here; and a pretty serious charge too. Look at Julian Assange... after consentual sex (at that point) with two women.

  • hmm this is kinda hard, not whether or not rape is OK, but it is hard to imagine when I'm thinking about how long she's been witholding I mean it isn't really fair when you're married to just withold anything like that for no reason. for example how would women feel if her husband were to just be like well it's my money so no you don't get it. I mean marriage is about compromise... anyway yeah it should be incredibly hard to prove but unfortunately nowadays guys are typically assumed to have done it if she says so, and as the guy below me says I've had a scare with this as well me and a girl got together but in the morning she remembered that she was christian and decided to tell her friends I forced her too or something (definitley not true, reverse if anything I was trying to sleep) but yeah thankfully the police decided that there was not enough proof to try and take me in (which that wording in itself is already bad for me "theres not enough proof" like they already assumed my guilt.) Which is why I make sure someone sees her and me before we go in (so they know I didn't like roofie her and try to carry her in or something so it obviously consensual)

    • True. Lots of dilemmas here. For women too.

Most Helpful Girls

  • What's your views on this?

    That it's quite telling about the ingrained misogyny in society. As well as such crimes likely have even more bias against the female victim than non marital cases as studies show that jurors tend to be bias against female rape victims and by default tend to think they're lying.

    So tacking on the bias and the already 'he said she said' nature of the crime I don't really see any much progress in guys being prosecuted for raping their wives when there's seemingly still a prevalent bias against female rape victims.

    • I completely agree with this +1

    • Agreed, patriarchy is a reality. But denial of sex doesn't seem to be the solution to me.

  • My views on this issue are very strange, and people don't really understand. But I'll say them anyways.

    I believe that it's rape as defined by the law if a man forces his wife to have sex with him. Period.

    However, if I was married, I would feel morally and religiously bound to have sex with my husband whenever he wanted it. So, in essence, if it happens to a hypothetical person, then I consider it rape. But if this happened to me, I would not consider it to be rape.

    I don't know if that makes any sense at all.

    • Makes a lot of sense to me. We get married on the understanding that we would be having sex. When my partner wanted it in the early days, I never ever thought of saying no. Agreed, she had a very nice way of asking. (You could call it seducing.) Men get impatient, angry, frustrated and badly ego-bruised when denied, rejected or rebuffed!

  • It's despicable that this was deemed okay until recently. It makes me sick that anyone would think rape is okay in marriage. Just because someone is married doesn't mean the woman becomes his property to do with as he sees fit. We do not live in the stone age, I can't even believe it took so long for this to be punishable by law. But, I'm glad it is now and I think it's a step in the right direction for society.

    • Women are increasingly complaining about a lack of sex in marriage too. I guess it boils down to a mismatch in the sexual desire/libido, and who's not getting it...

    • Yes I think so. Different people have different sexual desires. That's why I think it's important to be with someone you're sexually compatible with.

    • In the short run, everyone is compatible with everyone else. Strange but true. For men, it's easy to have sex with any woman who either flatters his soul or has a good body! For a woman, the initial stage is one where she works her best to 'prove' herself. In the long run, this all collapses...

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What Girls & Guys Said

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  • Marriage is considered as an agreement in many communities. In many cases when one of the partner has not cooperated for producing babies or stayed away from partner without any logical reason - court has ordered to establish marriage rights and that include sex. T the same time marriage does not mean a man owns their woman. Both the partners must have understanding about it. If they do not want a baby - they may use some protection or ask for divorce. Sexual relation out side marriage is also a crime, but all things are better than rape - rape is a forced action that would be very hard to prove and get a conviction for it, even if sex was forced in an illegal manner.

    • Agreeing over a baby is fine, and essential. But what if it's just recreational sex?

  • If by recently you mean it got banned in the earliest 20th century which is over a century ago then yeah. Although if I remember correctly the vikings had laws against this.

    Nice evidence/link/source you got there by the way ;)

    • the criminalization of marital rape started in the 1970s and the last state to make it illegal was in 1993

      link

      1991 in England and

      in places like China, Mongolia, Burma, most of the middle east and many places in Africa marital rape still is not a crime

  • My views? Rape is rape. Marriage doesn't mean a man owns their woman. If no sex is a problem, divorce. Or cheat. Anything is better than rape.

    • Sure. I agree. Rape is rape. But I'm not sure "cheating" is an option, given the heartburn it brings on multiple sides with it.

    • Cheating will always be better than rape.

  • I don't think anyone ever thought there was some 'right' to rape your wife; it's just that a judgment was made that it would be impossible to prove. And in most cases, it IS impossible to prove.

    It's just one person's word against another's in most cases. What's changed is that, t now, there is a perception that men are pretty much guilty until proven innocent, so the authorities can bring cases without proof and still, often, count on gender fascists on the jury to convict just on the woman's word alone.

    The unspoken assumption is that men are evil, so they should be convicted even if innocent.

    • Thing is, it wasn't called or seen as "rape" then. Neither did the wives see it so. They probably just looked upon it as another chore to be got out of the way!

    • Yes, I think the wives very rarely put up any resistance. Again, so how do you prove rape, there are no witnesses...and was force used? Who could say? That's why it very rarely came up. Now, you can often get a conviction, without any proof, given social attitudes. We all know women often accuse men of molesting the children in divorce cases, to get bigger divorce settlements and win custody battles. Attorneys encourage women to make up accusations.

  • I think it's a good change.

    But I think society and how we teach people about marriage has not changed to adapt.

    We shifted from at some point a 'you can have sex with your wife' view to 'as long as you please you partner they'll want to have sex as much as you do and if you love each other everything will work out.' That's simply not true in many cases either. Issues around sex are one of the top two drivers of divorce.

    tbh I am not sure marriage as we know it will be common in 300 years. It could be adapted but I see little evidence that it will be.

    • 300? I don't think it will last 30... Good points made, as usual!

  • rape is rape.

    just like chocolate ice cream is chocolate ice cream. marital rape is a sad sign of our male dominated society. like up until the early 1900s in much of America it was legal for a man and beat his wife as long as he was drunk. sad sad sad

    i was amazed when I learned that only recently (I think north carolina was the last state to illegalize marital rape) these laws had been changed

  • And yet, still so many men get away with it, especially those in the military. Some, not all. Either way, women still have a long way to go in achieving equal rights and turning our misogynistic culture into one that fully appreciates and understands women in society.

  • I think that's a crime that would be very hard to prove and get a conviction for, even if it should be illegal.

    • Why not? I don't think proving lack of consent would be so tough, with all the technicalities that science today offers.

    • There's not a scientific way to discern rape vs. consensual sex. You're down to a 'he said/she said' situation.

    • True. But then, the legal system is a little (lot?) arbitrary, isn't it?

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  • i didn't know this happens. I think people need to work harder to keep themselves up and stay attracted to each other. it's a personal responsibility.

    • Would that be enough? I'm not so sure... Guys in long term relationships tend to see this rather differently.

    • what do you mean? what I see is both genders letting themselves go and blaming each other. I don't want a marriage like that.

    • Neither did I :-)

  • Get it from somewhere else if she wants to be stingy .

  • Sorry to bring religion into this, but some churches teach that it's impossible for a man to rape his wife because the women should always give sex to her husband whenever he wants, and vice versa.

    • That was the position till very recently... but I don't think any woman would accept it. Specially not in the Western hemisphere. Not sure what religions like Islam, Buddhism, Judaism or Hinduism say about a wife's "responsibility" to provide sex (and, vice versa... but the male libido being what it is, this would mostly be a one-way street, I guess).

  • That's crazy but yes I knew that. What's so stupid about this whole thing is that people didn't call it rape since it was your "loving husband".

    • Regardless of the labels used, from a male point of view, the dilemma is how to cope with sex denial or 'cheating' charges or divorce and losing half your earnings.

    • Whatever

  • Married or not, its still rape.Class A felony. Sure probably years back it was over-looked. Dosen't mean its OK though.

    • That's right, as per the law. We're just wondering how to cope with the sudden change...

  • If all men treated their wives right and were respectful of her, she'd always want to have sex with him and this wouldn't even be an issue.

    It's good now that if a man forces his wife to have sex it is considered rape.

    There's a lot more wrong with a marriage than the sex if she's refusing. Maybe he should look at himself or his situation to see why she's turned off to him instead of thinking that because he has a penis that entitles him to sex with a vagina whenever he wants.

    • The first sentence is complete B.S. Doesn't work the other way either. Tons of women are married to men who won't have sex with them either.

    • I'm just saying if both parties in the marriage treated each other with the respect they deserved, then maybe the rape of a spouse wouldn't be a thing.

    • If that's all you want to say, obviously I'd agree. But its a myth, and dangerous one that 'if you treat people right they'll always want sex with you'. You can see it in a different way with all the furious nice guys on the site wondering why they're ignored. Treating people well and respectively does not make them horny.

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