Is sex a LEGAL right in marriage?

[TartWithAHeart]

DH reckons it is - I am not sure if he's winding me up.

Dropdeadfred, never a truer word spoken... I think that was a major part of the breakdown of my relationship

Agnes

DDF - same with my xdh.

We are all different and have different sex drives. Although technically I'm excluded from this, we're sometimes 3-4 times a week then we can go without for a couple of months and we're both happy with that (talk about it regularly) - as long as it's mutual with both of you I don't see sex as proportionate to how much you love each other.
I have been with someone before who constantly wanted it 2-3 times a day and it broke us up, too much pressure and zero enjoyment for me.

Sorry to hear that Agnes..

You would have to share the lottery win if you won the lottery whilst still married.

As far as I have heard, a man did win the lottery divorced his wife and then announced that he had won the lottery and he ended up having to share because he had won it whilst still married.

It is money that has been "earned" as a couple/unit, if that makes any sense.

I think it might be different with an inheritance though. The person that leaves the inheritance can specify that the inheritance is to benefit only you or your husband. If you then divorce the other person is not entitled to a share. That is the case in Denmark anyway.

"It was in 1991 that the law on marital sex was changed - R v R. I don't think anyone was prosecuted per se, it was to establish the legal principle in light of modern thinking"

It was 1992, when the case reached the House of Lords, and the husband did go to prison for 3 years. Quite right too. Even though he'd tried to weasel out of it by claiming that laws shouldn't be applied retrospectively (think he might have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights? unsuccessfully, I might add).

He did indeed appeal to Strasbourg, claiming retroactive criminalisation of the offence breached Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights rather than any appeal on the 'merits' of the case. The European Court rightly threw it out.

Even prior to R v R, it's fair to say that a man would have been convicted for raping his wife and that marriage didn't mean that consent was assumed. In the case of R v R, the defendant was relying pretty much on legislation and precedent from the 18th and 19th centuries.