Marital Rape: Are you the victim?

Rape is a form of crime action mostly experienced by women. Although we cannot dispute the fact that there are men who suffer from this criminal act, women are more vulnerable in this regard. With their unique physical situation, women carry larger post-rape burden, from being pregnant to post traumatic stress disorder. We all know that there are law and regulations to prevent and protect rape victims. But what if the criminal act is done within the legalized institution such as marriage?

Marital rape has been more and more acknowledged as one of the trickiest criminal act. Rape is basically defined as (sexual) acts without mutual consent, meaning one party disagrees to conduct such act. However, the institution of marriage seems to disregard this definition. In many countries, under various cultural and religious norms, women are obliged to fulfil the husband’s needs including sexual needs. For instance in Islam, women must listen and do what their husband tells them to do, when women fail to obey, they will be labelled as disobedient wife which result in stigma as a bad and irresponsible wife. In a lot of countries, people deny that rape can happen within the marriage institution because it is a wife’s duty to serve her husband sexually. Therefore, when the husband requests, the wife must provides. Sex becomes non-consensual and instead, it becomes mandatory.

Many married women suffer from marital rape without even realizing it. The only hint is that they suffer from depression, stress and frigidity. Sex is a mutual activity that takes two people and each party has to agree to conduct such action. When it is only one-sided and against one’s will, it is considered as rape.

Men need to have the same understanding regarding this issue and place women at an equal level as a partner rather than a sub-ordinate. Sexual conduct should be based on both decisions. There are reasons beyond women’s rejections that need to be assessed by men. Using religious and cultural norms as arguments are simply unfair and illogical because most of them are very patriarchal. There are also many other aspects and perspective in judging women as “good wife” besides the sexual obedience because women have many other supporting roles for their partners. It is time for women to be recognized as partners.