NCJ Number
149407
Date Published
1990
Length
459 pages
Annotation
This book examines the nature, causes, and consequences of marital rape and proposes law reform to make marital rape a crime in all States.
Abstract
This text has been updated and expanded to include recent findings and legal developments regarding marital rape. It includes a revised State-by-State listing of marital rape exemption laws and a bibliography on wife rape. Wife rape is defined as "any sexual intimacy forced on one person by another." Three types of rape are distinguished: rape by force; rape by threat of force; and rape when the wife is in no position to consent because she is unconscious, drugged, asleep, or in some other way helpless. Examples of these various types of rape are provided. The author reports on her survey of a sample of 930 women obtained from a random sampling of names from the San Francisco telephone directory. The women were interviewed about the nature of consensual and nonconsensual sex with their husbands. Eight-seven women in the sample were the victims of at least one completed or attempted rape by their husbands or ex-husbands. Some issues examined are the continuum of sexual relations, the association of wife rape with wife beating, the relationship between spouse battering and murder, and the characteristics of wife rape. One section examines the characteristics of husbands who rape their wives, their motivation, and the influence of alcohol and other drugs. Wives as victims of rape are discussed in terms of the effects of rape and why women remain in the marriage after a rape. Other subjects considered are women as property, torture and femicide, wives' strategies for countering marital rape, and an international perspective on wife rape. The author proposes deleting husbands' rape privilege from the law, such that a husband commits a criminal offense when he has sexual intimacy with his wife without her consent. Chapter notes, an extensive bibliography, and a subject index