The devil finds work for idle hands. This is the view held by many Jamaicans in light of recent attempts by parliament to criminalize marital rape. How can a woman who relinquished all her rights upon marriage charge her husband with rape? Utter and complete nonsense! As Boyne sarcastically wrote “It must be only some Satanic, God-denying, bra-burning feminists and other atheists who would come up with a hare-brained idea like marital rape! God help us.” In many parts of the world a woman claiming that she was raped by her husband is akin to someone claiming they were speeding on a Vespa; there is no way in that particular instance for the crime to occur.
The debate surrounding marital rape has been ongoing for centuries and is particularly controversial because traditionally, marriage has been viewed as a respectable institution that by default includes consensual intercourse. How then now can it be logically possible for a woman to allege her husband raped her? Does the marriage license grant a license to rape? There exists no settled answer to this question however the growing number of women suffering around the world from marital rape is evidence enough to commence legal reform. Extensive research on the issue has garnered much…show more content… Kilpatrick et al posits that “despite the fact that marital rape receives little public and scholarly attention, it is one of the most serious forms of violence between intimates.” He goes further to state that it is a “direct manifestation of male sexuality oriented toward domination and has serious physical, emotional and psychological effects on the victim and is equally or even more so as traumatic a violation of a woman’s embodiment and agency as stranger rape”