Under the Penal Code in Singapore, a man who forces intercourse
upon his wife is not taken to have committed rape, unless they were
separated or she had previously taken out a protection order or
injunction against sexual intercourse against him.
This is wholly unacceptable. Women's rights to protection
of bodily security and sovereignty should not vapourise upon
marriage. It is absurd to require legal applications for
orders and injunctions against being attacked. Sexual violence by
any person against any person should always be criminal.
Penal Code 375, Subsection (1) - Any man who penetrates the
vagina of a woman with his penis without her consent shall be
guilty of an offence of RAPE.
You did not post the complete Penal Code 375, what you have
posted is the subsection (4) of the Penal Code 375 which only
states that it is not an offence for a man to have sex with his
wife with her consent. Refer to subsection (1).
subsection (4) is an exception to subsection (1).
Subsection (1) is subject to subsection (4). In other words,
rape is forced intercourse by a man with a woman except where they are
married.
do you think we should make exceptions for the crimes of murder,
theft, poisoning, knifing and beating someone, just because
the victim is the husband or wife of the perpetatror?
Obviously if you could tell in advance that someone was
going to beat and rape you, if you had any choice you wouldn't want
to marry them. But over time, people may change, or in
different circumstances people may show sides to them you hadn't
seen before. Domestic violence happens. Murder
between spouses does occur. Nobody would dream of saying that a
woman who killed her husband, or a man who broke his wife's arm,
should be exempt from the laws against murder or assault. Why
change this for rape?
Rape is already a crime under the law. We all recognise (I
hope!) this is necessary. But the Penal Code
contains an extra provision
saying that this does not apply when the rapist is
married to the victim. I'm saying get rid of the
extra provision.
The question is whether something which was wrongful
violence outside of marriage, can suddenly become acceptable within
marriage.
Fear of abuse is not a good reason to stop this
from becoming legislation, but if the loopholes can be tightened
(such as by including evidence of injuries), then it'd be so much
better.
In principle, the govt should criminalise
marital rape.Maybe it can be called forced marital
sex.But such act might be difficult to proof in
court.
I support it but many Singaporeans are still too male chauvanist
pig to support it. Apparently the rights of men not being
falsely accused of martial rape is more weighty thanthe rights of
women not being subjected to martial rape.
The least we can do is to make proviso for such a crime to be
brought to trial.
and that doesn't mean that i don't feel that rape
victims need protection.
In the courts, they seems to recognise the 'battered
wife syndrome', which is the wife had been suffered abuses
from husband for a long time.
Sad to say in the court, there isn't seem to have a
equivalent syndrome that is recognised in the courts for the
men.
yamizi:
Maybe my first post was not very clear. At the moment, the
Penal Code says specifically that an act that
would normally be rape, is exempted from being
rape, just
because the rapist is married to the
victim. I am suggesting that the
exemption be
removed.
Yes, there are other offences relating to sexual violence: for
instance, there is outrage of modesty. However, rape is more
serious than outrage of modesty, and in every case where the
offender is not married to the victim the law now recognises
this. But when it comes to spouses the classification
"rape" is suddenly removed. So the only relevant
question here is whether marriage means we think a rape is
somehow less serious than it would be outside of
marriage.
Why would someone think that except based on old-fashioned and
sexist ideas about men owning their wives?
The distinction cannot be based on the risk of false
allegations. At the moment a girlfriend who is
not married to her boyfriend can falsely allege rape; a woman can
falsely allege rape by her colleague; a student can falsely allege
rape by her classmate; a businesspersoncan falsely allege rape by a
business rival... just as all these people can falsely allege they
were slapped or kicked by the other person.
In every
crime (NOT just rape, NOT just sex crime) with every
set of people there is
ALWAYS the risk of false allegations. We rely
on proper police investigation, proper screening by the
Attorney-General's Chambers, and proper examination of the evidence
by judges, to prevent injustices from being done. Why
should rape within marriage be seen as so special even where the evidence is
overwhelming as to be taken outside of this
process, so that it is not considered rape?
purpledragon84:
Criminal proceedings are separate from
divorce proceedings. It's already possible for wives to file
for divorce now; making marital rape a crime doesn't affect
that. What isn't possible is for rapists
(of their wives) to be punished under criminal
law. Also, we already recognise that spouses cannot
hit each other. At the moment wives could also falsely claim
that their husbands hit them, but we rely on the legal system to
make sure their claims are discredited. Surely you don't
think the risk of false allegations in divorce
proceedings means we should allow men to hit their
wives? Why does the situation change when the beating is with
a penis instead of a fist?
And I'm not biased at all. Trust me, if women had
penises and men had pussies and WE were the ones doing the
raping, I'd sure as f*cking hell say "enact a
martial law!" as well.
There is no obligation in marriage to have sex. Perhaps you're
not too widely read or knowledgable, but there are people who are
perfectly happy in romantic but non sexual relationships, many who
are even married. A marriage is a life long commitment that covers
a great many areas besides sex. It certainly isn't an obligation to
have sex.
If a woman has a headache that isn't apparent, or if she just
isn't in the mood, its not something a husband would reasonably
notice, so why would a husband who asks when shes not in the mood
be a bad husband? Nobody is bad for asking, any reasonable
man will say "its ok, your welfare is more important". A husband is
bad when they don't take no for an answer AFTER
asking.
If the husband is unreasonable and commits martial rape, a
divorce is not enough once the rape happens. And also,
it's not like you can file for a divorce in the minutes a
martial rape is committed right? You gotta be really
stupid to think that in the final moments when the wife has
rejected sex due to any reason and the husband disrespects that,
she can file a divorce and be safe from martial
rape. What utter crap.
Finally, rape is the act of a man forcefully
inserting his penis into a woman's vagina without
consent, whether that woman is his wife or not.
Nowhere in marriage does it say that marriage means the woman has
given permanent consent. In fact marriage says to respect
each other, and that means if the wife says no, it means
no. If a guy can't respect that, he needs to be castrated
because he really needs to be removed from the gene pool.
