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Original poster

I understand that rape within marriage was not made illegal until 1991

92 replies

ToadsJustFellFromTheSky · 04/09/2016 20:12

I realise I'm probably going to sound stupid, but I just cannot get my head around this.

I know it wasn't made illegal until 1991 (I was born in 1991 which just makes it even more Hmm to me) but surely a man just couldn't get away with raping a woman just because she was his wife before 1991?

So let's just say it's 1990 and a woman goes to the police because she has been raped and she wants to report it. However the man who raped her was her husband.

Would the police seriously not investigate or do anything just because it was her husband who raped her? Or would they not be able to do anything even if they wanted to because technically according to the law no crime had been committed?

I find it completely unbelievable that it wasn't a crime for so long.

OP posts:
KickAssAngel · 04/09/2016 20:51

I know someone in RL who divorced just 2 years ago. Apparently he instigated the divorce because she told him she never wanted to be 'properly his wife' again, so he had a hissy fit, physically grabbed their son and stormed out of the house.

Another time, she mentioned that he'd got very angry because he expected his conjugal rights.

I can't imagine how awful that marriage was - 17 years she was married to him, and only in the final year did she start saying 'no' to sex. I assume that early on there was some desire and enjoyment, but how long had she just been 'letting him'?

BertieBotts · 04/09/2016 20:59

This article might provide some context, too. In 1991 rape was a thing that happened in alleyways. It certainly didn't happen in your own home by your own husband; that wasn't rape, that was just men. My grandma's pre-wedding advice to my mum "It's easier if you just let them get on with it".

www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36434191

BertieBotts · 04/09/2016 21:00

The article may be triggering, sorry if that wasn't clear.

Pinkangel23 · 04/09/2016 21:01

It does seem horrific, I was born in the late 80's and it doesn't seem such a long time ago but attitudes towards marriage, women, sex were more backwards (not that they've really improved a whole lot in 25 years mind you). For instance a family member- a child was abused by her mother's boyfriend in the late 80's, no charges were brought about and the presiding social worker advised the mother to marry the abuser, with disastrous consequences, to avoid losing her child. Sounds absurd but the rationale behind this was that being 'married' as opposed to just having a 'live-in boyfriend' would make her respectable. So I guess our views on the value of marriage, and rights within marriage have changed. Furthermore there was culture of disbelief within the police when dealing with rape cases until very recently, shocking Sad.

TwentyCups · 04/09/2016 21:01

You don't sound stupid. It's a horrible shocking thing to get your head around.
There are still many married women who are regularly raped by their husbands in Britain today.
It must be very hard for those who have been married since before 91 as I imagine these women will have been manipulated to believe this is ok and normal regardless of a change in the law.
It saddens me that so many people think rape is something that only strangers can do to a woman, as the reality is most women who are raped know their attacker.
I also think the phrase 'date rape' hasn't helped this thinking, as I think having a separate phrasing makes people see it as a lesser crime. Rape is rape. The word 'date' conjures up an image of fun and frivolity for lots of people, and as a precursor to the word 'rape' means it doesn't drive home the message that it is a horrible violent crime.

Gardencentregroupie · 04/09/2016 21:10

There's a fair bit of case law, I've just read this article from a law journal in 1991

The pp is right, marital consent wasn't ever written as law apparently, it only took a judgement from the court of appeal and one by the Law Lords to rebut the historic assumption.

SenecaFalls · 04/09/2016 21:18

It is shocking to think about it. It took nearly 20 years for all states in the US to eliminate the marital rape exemption. The first did so in 1976 (in my state it was 1981) and the last state to do so did it in 1993.

It is still difficult to prosecute for many reasons, and many women don't even realize that they have a right to say no to a husband.

Gardencentregroupie · 04/09/2016 21:23

A lot of the US states still treat marital rape differently, and some only consider it a crime if force is used to rape rather than coercion, incapacitation, drugging etc :(

IrenetheQuaint · 04/09/2016 21:24

Thanks Gardencentre, that's interesting.

I wonder how many prosecutions and convictions for marital rape there have been since. No doubt a miniscule proportion of the number of offences.

NotCitrus · 04/09/2016 21:30

Agreed twentycups that people perceive date rape as lesser rape, but the phrase was created to try to point out that what happens to people whom they have had a conversation or even a kiss with is actually rape, not 'just a bad date'.

Attitudes will take generations to change - my parents still think that if a girl goes to a bedroom or hotel room, that that clearly means sex because why else would you? (lovely conversation when I moved out to a bedsit and happened to mention having parties with a dozen male students...) Equally taking any drugs is consent to any sex in their eyes, because again what do you expect?

So it gets incomprehensible when my mum gets all concerned about my generation and younger dealing with 'newly' rapey men, whereas in fact there was surely more rape when she was young, but the girls didn't realise it - mum argues they wouldn't have been upset by it, but I somehow doubt that! (Mum is a war baby, I was born mid 70s)

SenecaFalls · 04/09/2016 21:33

Yes, at last count, there are 13 states that define marital rape more narrowly than rape outside of marriage. Hopefully, those states will change their laws soon.

But even in states, like mine, that define sexual assault in marriage no differently than outside marriage, it is seldom reported or prosecuted.

SenecaFalls · 04/09/2016 21:34

But not all states that treat it differently require that force be used, just to clarify.

TwentyCups · 04/09/2016 21:36

I agree there are no more rapists now then before, just a lot more women who were not able to admit what was happening, or didn't understand that they didn't have to put up with it.
I despair because in RL I still hear many people saying they think women are asking for it and other dreadful offensive misconceptions.
My friend recently did a study with an snonymous questionnaire on victim blaming. Participants gave their age and sex, and the number of people under 30 who still victim blame over rape was shocking. Lots of people thinking that people who have had sex with someone previously give consent to all future sexual activities in particular.

NotCitrus · 04/09/2016 21:40

US states used to have ages of consent that differed depending on whether the couple were married or not - so 18 if not married, as young as 12 if you were. I think most of those were revised in the 1990s too.

UK and USA are only about 50 years ahead of many of the countries they now denounce when it comes to women's rights.

ITCouldBeWorse · 04/09/2016 21:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Felascloak · 04/09/2016 21:42

I'm the same age as you citrus and my parents also have strange views about how if a woman goes to a mans room she can't be surprised if he rapes her. Coloured my student years quite a lot.
I also think attitudes to child abuse/sex assault have changed a lot too. We know a lot more about child protection and I think there's a lot more wariness about the possible motives of people involved with children so safeguarding is much better.
I suppose you could look at it a different way and say isn't it great that we've changed a previously entrenched view to something shocking and almost unbelievable in one generation. If we keep progressing at that rate, what else could change in our lifetimes?

VestalVirgin · 04/09/2016 22:00

This is why oral and anal sex is still illegal, so that no-one can say you consented to it

Really? Actually, that's a great idea, why don't we just make PiV illegal, too? Apparently, not so very many men have wrongly been accused of rape using the laws against oral and anal, so ... seems to work quite well!

Rape within marriage was made illegal in 1997 in Germany. And apparently, only in 2004 became a real crime, such that the victim's willingness to press charges is no longer relevant. (That's of course completely symbolic, as it is unlikely anyone would know that a woman was raped by her husband if she didn't say so, but it's important that the rapist is seen as danger to all of society)

AnyFucker · 04/09/2016 22:05

And only very recently has the concept of "coercion" come into the (limited, so far...if you go off threads on MN) public consciousness

You do not sound stupid, T

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 04/09/2016 22:21

This is why oral and anal sex is still illegal, so that no-one can say you consented to it

Oral and anal sex are not illegal in the UK.

MatildaOfTuscany · 04/09/2016 22:27

Yes, I find it terrifying to think that I am old enough that I could (had I married at a young age) have endured several years of marital rape with no legal redress.

The case law thing is interesting, Garden - if I'm remembering correctly, being case law which established that there never had been such a thing as "conjugal rights" this then enabled some cases to be tried for historical crimes predating the 1991 cutoff.

Vestal - it's only this summer that Germany has finally removed the need for evidence that the woman physically resisted the man in rape cases, isn't it? And if I've got the right end of the stick, I think it's still the case that rape is the presence of "no" rather than the absence of "yes" (thank heavens UK law has now reached a stage where there's no such thing as presumed consent - even if it's damned hard to prove).

SenecaFalls · 04/09/2016 23:06

UK and USA are only about 50 years ahead of many of the countries they now denounce when it comes to women's rights.

The violence against women movement is young even in the UK and the US; I do think we sometimes forget that. They are closely linked too; the opening of the refuge in Chiswick in 1971 directly influenced the opening of shelters in the US and other countries.

thecraftyfox · 04/09/2016 23:46

NotCitrus, the law in some US states still permits 12 year old girls to marry with parental or judicial consent usually due to pregnancy . Many of these girls marry men in their 20s or older. It's horrendous. Virginia outlawed it in June this year but it's still permitted in other states

ThymeLord · 04/09/2016 23:55

I read this a couple of hours ago and couldn't make my mind up whether or not to post. I got married in 1999 and my husband raped me lots and lots of times. I didn't identify as a feminist then, I didn't really know what feminism was. I remember telling a good friend what he was doing and being told he can't rape you he's your husband! As though it was as simple as that. It's not that unusual for women to not see rape within a marriage as rape. I wish it was.

AnyFucker · 05/09/2016 00:01

I am sorry, TL

Lessthanaballpark · 05/09/2016 00:03

ThymeLord that's awful. It just goes to show how changing the law is one thing but changing people's attitudes is a whole other story.

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