Jill Hasday (Minnesota) published an op-ed in today’s Washington Post:
Donald Trump’s lawyer Was Right: In Some Places, Raping Your Wife is Still Treated Like a Minor Offense. Here is an excerpt.
All states prosecute some forms of marital rape in theory. But in reality, statutes criminalizing marital rape are often inadequate. They also remain dramatically and disproportionately under-enforced.
This injustice has deep historical roots. For centuries, husbands were absolutely exempt from criminal prosecution for raping their wives. In the eyes of the law, marital rape was a legal impossibility.
That is no longer true. Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, every state eliminated husbands’ absolute immunity from prosecution. Most states accomplished this reform through legislation. A few achieved it through judicial opinions. * * * Yet modified forms of the marital rape exemption survive in at least 23 states. Legislatures in these states continue to treat rape in marriage more leniently than rape outside of it. Some criminalize a narrower range of conduct if committed within marriage, others impose less serious penalties on the marital rape they do recognize or create special procedural obstacles to marital rape prosecutions.
The full piece is available here.
