Woman claimed her husband repeatedly raped her, jury says he is not guilty

No, it doesn't need physical assault.
It's sexual assault. And anyone of the 2 in a marriage can claim rape is sex is done without consent. Marriage does not nullify rapes.

This thread is about law, marriage is a legal contract in the eyes of the law.

Now for marriage between 2 people, most make a commitment to each other in the vows they recite at a ceremony. Which casual dating doesn't do. So, you made a terrible assumption.

 

So a husband has sex with his own wife, the woman who agreed to marry him, the woman who agreed to have sex with him numerous times before, there is no physical assault, but you consider it a sexual assault, based only on the fact that the wife did not give her specific permission for that one time?

I'm not even claiming this is not wrong, but to call it "sexual assault"? Doesn't that seem WAAAAY excessive?

I don't suppose it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever to you if the husband in question had stayed within the bounds of marriage and never had sex with anyone else or cheated on his wife during the entire length of that marriage?

Because to me, it could totally change the situation if the wife found out her husband had been cheating on her and that is the reason she did not want to have sex.
Then I could maybe be willing to call it a "sexual assault".

If he has broken the bonds of that marriage, then the marriage is already in tatters. She can't be expected to respect that union, just like he hasn't.

 

I could be wrong about this but even in Communist China it is usually not treated as a criminal offense. They might treat it more as a possible domestic legal issue.

In the Bahamas it is not rape unless the couple is separated or there is a restraining order in place.
Same thing in Jamaica, except it also includes if one spouse knows they have an sexually transmitted infection.

Barbados only criminalised it 6 years ago.

Egypt has a court precedent that ruled that sex between husband and wife is not rape.

It's not considered rape in Libya or Algeria. The law does not specifically specify, but it is very unlikely any court will treat it as rape any time soon.

In India it is only a rape if the wife is separated or "estranged" from her husband. In that case it is not an ordinary rape and the maximum sentence is only 7 years. (compared to a minimum sentence of 10 years for normal rape)

Marital rape is specifically excluded from the definition of rape in English-speaking Nigeria, which has a population bigger than the UK, France and Germany combined.

 

No.
You popped the religious référence into the conversation but didnt understand what it ment. You only saw it as a male excuse for sex on demand .
You didnt see the counterbalance specifically mentioned.

 

There is no such thing as a secular church organisation .
And your référence did not say there are two different perspectives on marriage. The versé was about one perspective equally enjoyed by borh partners.
Do you often misunderstand your laws of scripture?

 

In todays world, in ANY relationship, and at any time, if one of à pair says no and the other forces them to submit, that is assault.
Other whatifs dont count.

 

Yes indeed. There are still pockets of places where à man doesnt have to honour or respect his wife but can force himself on her regardless of her wishes. May he gets some perverse pleasure out of her résistance.
How you can say you love someone enough to spend the rest of your life with her and then assault her, ignoring her wishes and physically imposing yourself on her against those wishes is utterly contradictory if not médiéval. Love includes à hefty dollop of respect for the individual. Not the right to invade her personal space. She GIVES you that privilège. You dont TAKE it. And that works both ways.
I am quite astonished that we have to give marriage guidance counselling in a political forum!

 

The majority of the world's population lives in these "pockets".
If you just add up China and India, and the entire Muslim World, you already go over 50%.

That's not even counting Nigeria, an English-speaking country, which has more population than Germany and France combined.

 

I dont care. This is not a case for democratic pressure.
The majority of the world unfortunately is still socially primitive and women were and are always the victim, useful for the convenience of men.

 

Do you think the fact that you live in France might bias you?
After all, it has long been seen as normal for French men to keep a mistress on the side. You know, the stereotype of being very sexually loose in the French royal court. So I am thinking they might not have the same views of marriage as perhaps other parts of the world.

With marriages being very loose, it would not mean as much. Marriages might be seen as only slightly longer-term casual romantic flings.

 

Stéréotypes are usually not true.
And we are not talking about fidelity. We are discussing male abuse of his wife.
I dont see any respect, love, appréciation, concern, willingness to communicate, tenderness, or sharing in such behaviour.
He needs some seriously counselling.

 

None of your scenarios matter.
Consensual sex is consensual sex. Period.
Rape is defined as sex without consent.

Are women property of men is they get married?

 

There are some pretty terrible takes in this thread.

Would any of you guys defending the husband be ok if the wife got him passed out drunk, tied him to the bed, and stuck her fist up his anus?

 

That would not be ok, the woman is the property of the man in a marriage.
A bible verse posted earlier said something similar.

 

That's not exactly what anyone has said. She can divorce or separate from him at any time. She can do the same thing to him that he can do to her.
Women commit low level acts physical acts of abuse against their husbands all the time and the police are never called, or even if they are very oftentimes the police will not do anything and leave the two of them to work it out amongst themselves (since it assumed women are emotional and that's just what they do, and the man is stronger and less in need of protection).

 

That's not exactly a "normal form of sex". It would be the same thing if the husband forced himself on his wife and made her have that type of sex. The husband would get much less benefit of the doubt and it would be more likely he would be arrested. The question that has to be asked is, is this a normal form of sex that reasonable women commonly consent to in marriage?

(In fact there were laws in older times that specifically made this type of sex illegal, with the assumption that women would not like it and it would exploit women)

 

There are different definitions of "consent" and different levels of consent can exist in a given situation.
She consented when they married. She continues to give some level of consent by not separating from or divorcing him. This would be a great type of situation for a restraining order.

It seems you're walking into the room carrying a bias and preconceived assumption.

In logical argument, you can't do that.

 

Is what was described in the OP a “normal form of sex”?

 

You know what I was referring to. Normal in the form of what type of physical form it was in.

You're trying to conflate physical conditions with mental conditions.

A wife can be the "victim of marital rape" and yet the husband has done absolutely nothing physically different to her than he did the night before, when there was no issue about consent.

It seems to me in this case the crime is not really a physical one, but is more of an emotional, mental, spiritual, and marital one. An issue of consent, rather than a physical assault.

 

No.

“I do”, doesn’t mean they can’t say no.

Being married doesn’t change the definition of rape. Not for decent people.

Rationalize it however you want.

 

"I do" means we are going to have sex.

She then took the next step of consummating that marriage by having consensual sex with him.

Geese!

Your views of sexuality are totally screwed up. He's not really doing anything to her he hasn't done to her the night before.

This is just radical feminism talking.

Raping someone is not wrong just because the woman is not agreeing to have sex in that specific instance! She never agreed to have sex with that man at all, ever. He is exposing her to the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases she has never been exposed to. She has never given her approval of sex before, which means she does not find him to be a desirable man to sleep with, or have babies with.

Marriage is a totally different situation.

If a woman never wants to have babies, or ever risk getting pregnant, marriage is probably not a good choice for her.

 

No. Not even close.

 

Marriage is an agreement, a partnership, a union. Both parties give up some rights in that marriage.

In a few ways it's almost as if those two people are one person.

 

Your statement does nothing to justify rape, which is the thing you are defending,

 

You're just using circular logic, semantics, and an equivocation fallacy.

My argument is that it's not "rape".
Your argument is "it is because it is".

There are different forms of so-called "rape". A "rape" (as you would like to call it) within a marriage is, and can be, very different from a rape outside of a marriage. This is all just semantics. The word that is used should not be what is truly important. It should be the actual meaning of the word that is important.

The word "rape" usually carries a lot of implied meaning. A lot of that meaning is absent in this situation.