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

[ToadsJustFellFromTheSky]

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 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.

I"m so sorry, ThymeLord. There are still many people who don't know that sexual assault in marriage is against the law, and many others who know but just don't care.

No need, but thank you . We divorced 10 years ago. I just find it staggering that people still believe this shit.

I'm sorry that happened to you, TL, and glad that you got out.

I was at Uni when the law changed, studying law and I vividly remember the debates we would have round this. It's one of the things that turned me on to feminism in the first place. There were an astonishing amount of people who either didn't see the need for this law, would argue against it, or bluster on about women getting far too uppity and if they get this, then what on earth will they want next?? It was an eye-opener.

It was a real shot in the arm for women's rights. Around the same time women's groups were also fighting for recognition of battered women's syndrome and what happens when women who have been abused for years snap and kill their husbands. There was simply no understanding of this, because again, domestic violence, like sex, just wasn't seen as an issue by most of society. So women like Sarah Thornton and Kiranjit Aluwhalia, who would previously have been convicted of murder, were able to use a defence of diminished responsibility.

It's all so very recent, but we forget so quickly, don't we? It's why older feminists get all shouty when young women say they don't need feminism any more. But to me, one of the most important things to do in feminism is to make sure we connect across generations and keep the knowledge alive and keep fighting together...

I think people generally don't realise, to be honest. In Scotland, it only became rape to have sex with a woman when she was asleep, or otherwise unable to consent, in 2010.

And still, it is almost impossible to prosecute a sexual offence like that because of the need for corroboration (two pieces of evidence). In fact, any sexual offence which is not your stranger in a dark street scenario. It becomes he says, she says. And the police, at least informally, have acknowledged this to me in relation to the sexual assault of my child, if the only evidence is what the child says. Even though there were behaviours around it which I explained. The alleged perpetrator 'presented well' and denied all knowledge. Case closed.

Wives and children are still utterly at risk from rape and sexual assault in places they are living, the law - in my opinion - is still inadequate

And like others on here, I am not going to collude in the silence around these things. My only hesitation is that speaking out is maybe letting potential offenders know that the law covers their backs

In Scotland, it only became rape to have sex with a woman when she was asleep, or otherwise unable to consent, in 2010.

WTF.

I just want to thank everyone for being so patient with me.

I am still completely and at this though.

Like I said I was born in early 1991 and it's just so surreal to think that rape in marriage was legal then and wasn't made illegal until later that year.

I have another question though if no one minds answering. Would you say it was common knowledge among people prior to 1991 that a man couldn't legally rape his wife?

I can only speak for my circle of friends but it was definitely common knowledge for us as the change in law was something to be celebrated. I was late teens at the time.

I teach English at secondary level, and this comes up in various ways when teaching certain texts at A Level. The students are all horrified by this fact - male and female alike. I ask them to guess when it became illegal to rape one's wife before telling them - they all guess a much earlier date.

I take comfort from the fact that they are angry and revolted by this; that in their eyes sex should be consensual whenever it happens, regardless of whether a couple are married or dating, consent is never presumed. I know that not all teenagers think like this, but I do what I can in my tiny, tiny sphere of influence each day.

I work with teenagers from a variety of cultures and some are shocked when I tell them it IS illegal. Que interesting discussion.

The judgment is here if anyone would like to see it. You have to go down to 'Lord Keith of Kinkel' to get the actual House of Lords judgment. As others have said, it wasn't that there was positive legislation that meant that a husband could not be convicted of raping his wife. Instead it was an assumption contained in a 1736 treatise on law by Sir Matthew Hale which had then been taken to be correct. The key bit is where Lord Keith says:

"For over 150 years after the publication of Hale's work there appears to have been no reported case in which judicial consideration was given to his proposition... It may be taken that the proposition was generally regarded as an accurate statement of the common law of England. The common law is, however, capable of evolving in the light of changing social, economic and cultural developments. Hale's proposition reflected the state of affairs in these respects at the time it was enunciated. Since then the status of women, and particularly of married women, has changed out of all recognition in various ways which are very familiar and upon which it is unnecessary to go into detail. Apart from property matters and the availability of matrimonial remedies, one of the most important changes is that marriage is in modern times regarded as a partnership of equals, and no longer one in which the wife must be the subservient chattel of the husband. Hale's proposition involves that by marriage a wife gives her irrevocable consent to sexual intercourse with her husband under all circumstances and irrespective of the state of her health or how she happens to be feeling at the time. In modern times any reasonable person must regard that conception as quite unacceptable."

That's a good question, OP. I do think that it was generally common knowledge in the US. I particularly remember when the law changed in my state because it happened fairly early on in the process of the law changing in all the different states of the US. (1981)

What's really concerning is that I am not sure that even today, knowledge of the change is as common as it should be.

www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-lawyer-you-cant-rape-your-spouse

Also the change in my state was by judicial decision, which referenced English common law, rather than by legislative action.

I would say definitely common knowledge in the uk

I've just looked it up and am surprised to find the law was changed earlier here, in 1989. But abortion wasn't legal until 1991 and to get that passed in to law the king had to temporarily abdicate (some insane legal loophole finding going on there).

I'm about the same age as you, OP, and I'm also completely shocked and disgusted. These are the kind of dates that I always try to remember as they show how much progress feminism has made for women and what a short time ago things were much worse.

There are countries where rape within marriage was legal for even longer too.

In Germany it wasn't made illegal until 1997

I'm not sure it was common knowledge, as for most people it would be something they hadn't really thought about, but if they did, then they would probably have assumed 'conjugal rights'.

It was certainly our biology teacher who made us aware of it, having previously made us aware of Section 28 and continued "you think that's bad..."

Of course when I was born in the 70s, groping and harassment of women in the workplace was normal - there's a series of management training videos starring a very, very young John Cleese, Hugh Laurie etc, showing bad management, and still used today - except when asked for examples of where John Cleese (think a David Brent character) has gone wrong, people list all the sexism, and then the trainer has to explain that actually, none of the sexism was intended as a learning point - it was just supposed to represent normality!

And women still got barred from bank loans and similar until around that time - I recall reading The Doll's House (Ibsen) and being shocked. followed by even more shock to find it was the case until around my birth. It was what made me explicitly think of myself as a feminist rather than well-I-suppose-so-duh.

If we're talking about Germany, did you know that it has only just - i.e. this year - passed a "no means no" law? - under previous legislation, a woman had to prove that she had defended herself for an act to constitute rape: simply having said "No" was not enough to find a defendant guilty.

Here

Germany's sexual assault laws are really crap in general. The age of consent laws are awful. They've been slightly improved recently but not greatly. And don't get me started on the legalised prostitution which is supposed to protect sex workers but fails on every single count.

Bertie please can you point me in the direction of age of consent laws in Germany? Why are they specifically crap ? Not doubting you, but curious.

They are pretty complicated but to sum up:

The "basic" age of consent is 14, which is the lowest AOC in Europe. Some other countries have 14 as well. This is for anyone. So a 14 year old can have a sexual relationship with a 30 year old and the 30 year old is not breaking the law. There is something wishy-washy about whether or not a person over 21 has exploited a 14 or 15yo's lack of capacity to understand and decide about consent, (this was only added in 1994) but in practice this is moot because it relies upon an actual complaint from the 14-15yo themselves, which first off is extremely rare/unlikely, and given their general crapness at sexual assault convictions, I highly suspect any sign of the 14/15yo "wanting it" would invalidate this kind of complaint anyway.

The maximum sentence for anyone sexually abusing a person under 14 (aka paedophilia) is just 10 years :(

The sentencing for a person over 21 who abuses a person under 16 (but over 14) is an absolute joke, a slap on the wrist. It ranges from nothing to a maximum of three years. And a person under 21 is apparently incapable of exploiting a younger person's lack of capacity to consent, meaning a 20 year old can freely have a sexual relationship with a just-14 year old with no legal question.

They do have a clause which prevents things like student/teacher sexual relationships when one or both participants are under 18, but I think this is fairly standard. This was also only added in 1994. Perfectly legal if the student was over 14 before then.

Lastly, a fun fact. Until 1973 they had a "virgin clause" which meant it was worse if an older person had sex with a teenage virgin (the direct translation is "unblemished girl under the age of 16", which is just VOM) than a teenager who had had sex before. I find this highly WTF.

I think I was mistaken about them being improved recently; I was thinking of the 1994 changes, but this isn't recent at all.

I also made a slight mistake - the under 16/over 21 rule was brought in to replace the "virgin clause" in 1973 but in West Germany only, and the complaint could be made by the teenager's parents but not them themselves (? - it's a bit unclear). In 1994 it was extended to all of Germany. Between reunification and 1994 each territory kept their previous laws - the East had some kind of socialist ruleset up until this point.

ToadsJustFellFromTheSky You do not sound stupid at all. If you go back through history you can find all sorts of laws that used to be the case and no longer are and some pretty dubious current legislation. I find it bananas that my mother's name and occupation and those of my mother in law are not on my marriage certificate and my fathers' and father in law's are. I find this difficult to get my head around. Just...eh?