opinion

So long as myths persist among lawyers and judges, and women are disempowered to report to the police, spousal rape will remain under-reported and prosecuted. Women demonstrate against rape culture in front of an Ontario courthouse in 2017.

Sarah Weinman is the author of Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle To Make Spousal Rape a Crime.

Spousal rape is a crime. But in North America and much of the world, the idea that a man could legally rape his wife is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first major American spousal rape trial took place in Salem, Ore., in December, 1978, when just three other states – Nebraska, Iowa, and Delaware – had similar statutes. ( South Dakota had been the first , in 1975, but repealed their statute just 18 months later

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