Can a husband rape his wife?

Marital rape

This article is about marital rape. For a related article, see Sexual violence by intimate partners. For violence between partners, see Outline of domestic violence.


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Marital rape (also known as spousal rape and rape in marriage) is non-consensual sex (i.e., rape) in which the perpetrator is the victim's spouse. It is a form of partner rape, of domestic violence and of sexual abuse.
Once widely condoned or ignored by law and society, marital rape is now opposed by many societies around the world, repudiated by international conventions and increasingly criminalized. The issues of sexual and domestic violence within marriage and the family unit, and more generally, the issue of violence against women, have come to growing international attention from the second half of the 20th century onwards. Still, in many countries, marital rape either remains outside the law, or is illegal but widely tolerated, with the laws against it being rarely enforced.
The reluctance to criminalize and prosecute marital rape has been attributed to traditional views of marriage, to interpretations of religious doctrines, to ideas about male sexuality and female sexuality, and to cultural expectations of subordination of a wife to her husband—views which continue to be common in many parts of the world. These views of marriage and sexuality started to be challenged in most Western countries from the 1960s and 70s especially by second-wave feminism, leading to an acknowledgment of the woman's right to self-determination (i.e., control) of all matters relating to her body, and the withdrawal of the exemption or defence of marital rape.
Most countries have criminalized marital rape from the late 20th century onwards; very few legal systems allowed for the prosecution of rape within marriage before the 1970s. Criminalization has occurred through various ways, including removal of statutory exemptions from the definitions of rape, judicial decisions, explicit legislative reference in statutory law preventing the use of marriage as a defense, or creating of a specific offense of marital rape. In many countries, it is still unclear whether marital rape is covered by the ordinary rape laws, but in some it may be covered by general statutes prohibiting violence, such as assault and battery laws. Marital rape laws are in many countries rarely enforced, due to factors ranging from reluctance of authorities to pursue the crime, to lack of public knowledge that forced sexual intercourse in marriage is illegal.