10 Things I Bet You Didn't Know About Marital Rape.

1.     Maximum rapes are done by strangers? Think again.

      The number of women sexually assaulted by their husbands is 40 times the number of women attacked by men they don’t know.

2.    If you’re over 15, it ain’t rape.

       The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 states, “Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife being not under 15 yrs age is not rape.”

3.    Let's save the family system by trampling on her rights.

In a report to Parliament in 2013 it was said, “If marital rape is brought under the law, the entire family system will be under great stress.”

4.    A duty-bound wife?

It is a belief that sex is for a purpose and not pleasure, thus it is a duty of the wife to have sex with her husband. It is also what the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 says.

5.    Psychological Issues? Let’s pretend they don’t exist.

Almost 1/3 of all rape victims (31%) develop PTSD, sometime during their life time and more than one in ten (11%) still have PTSD.

6.    Let’s make a committee with qualified jurists and not listen to them!

Criminalizing marital rape was suggested by the Verma Committee. The Government rejected this proposed change leaving it out of the draft bill it presented to Parliament.

7.    Shame!

In 2000 2/3 of the married Indian women surveyed by the United Nation Population Fund, claimed to have been forced to have sex by their husbands.

8.    “Yeah, I force her. What's wrong in that?”

In 2011 a study released by the International Center for Research on Women, a Washington-based-non-profit said, every one in five Indian men surveyed admitted to forcing their wife into sex.

9.    Guess how many countries are against marital rape.

It’s currently illegal in 18 American States, 3 Australian States, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic and many more.

10.          What did the English courts think about marital rape?

The marital rape exemption can be traced to statements made by Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice in England, during the 1600s. He wrote, “The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wedded wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract, the wife hath given herself in kind unto the husband, whom she cannot retract.”