Criticism Of Marital Rape

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Thanh Nguyen C0211_3061 Nina Chapman Sociology 100 Nov 1 2014 Marital Rape Historically rape has been defined forced sexual intercourse (vaginally, orally or anally) with violence, the threat of violence or without the consent of the partner. This has traditionally excepted married individuals and included only victims who are relatively unknown to each other. Rape in general is found to be more common in patriarchal societies and the sexism that arises from it. Patriarchy is defined as: “a family, group or government controlled by a man or a group of men” (Merriam-Webster). Marital rape is easily overlooked because it is more easily invalidated. This gives it the appearance of being less harsh than acquaintance or stranger rape. Add to this that it is more than likely to be repeated by the same perpetrator, who realizes he can get away with it, as compared to the stranger rapist will more often than not hide or move on. Further, recovery and escape from the situation is made more difficult because the perpetrator is not on the street but in the victim’s home. Even more egregious the family and cultural sphere may socially view such behavior as acceptable. The marital exception arises historically from England’s Sir Matthew Hale who wrote …show more content…

Threats can range from simply physical harm to verbalizing the act of killing. The actual use of force can be the assailant holding down the victim until submitting or using physical force to inflict bodily harm until submission. It cannot be questioned that social and interpersonal types of coercion are domineering to women in society. It would appear these types of coercion could be labeled as rape but shouldn’t, even though they are reprehensible. In the interest of intervening on the interests of marital victims, it would far more useful to limit this to the threatened act of physical force or the actual

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