Women Trapped in Not-So-Sacred Marriages
The brutal reality of laws on marital rape
Trigger warning: the story includes a graphic description and the subject of rape.
It boggles the mind that well into the 21st century a disturbing number of nations refuse to recognize a basic, fundamental human right. As cruel and primitive as it sounds, approximately 48 countries do not criminalize a husband’s rape of his wife.
With 195 nations in the world, this means that nearly a quarter of them allow a man to force sex upon his wife at his whim with no legal repercussions.
The countries that don’t criminalize marital rape generally fall into two categories in which the laws either: 1) do not prohibit a husband from forcing his wife to have sex or 2) specifically exclude husband and wife relationships from the definition of rape.
The rationale for not imposing criminal laws against marital rape
The primary basis for the refusal to criminalize rape is steeped in the archaic notion that a husband can’t steal what he owns. In essence, the wife has become her husband’s property. Simply by her marriage, she has implicitly consented to sex whenever and however he chooses. She has no right to refuse — a principle with cultural or religious undertones.
