Category: Marriage

Is Virginia’s Proposed Marital Rape Statute a Good Idea?

A lot of folks are up in arms over Virginia’s proposal to criminalize marital rape, but the proposal seems like simple common sense.

Virginia’s legislature is considering altering its laws to make it easier for married women to file rape charges against their husband. Some critics of feminism are up in arms over this proposed change, but, in fact, passing the law would be the right thing to do.

The issue here is pretty straightforward. Under current Virginia law, a woman who wants to accuse her husband of rape must first meet two criteria — she must no longer be living with her husband or she must provide some evidence of a serious bodily injury. If she is still living with her husband or did not sustain a serious bodily injury, she cannot accuse her husband of rape.

The proposed law would eliminate those two requirements, giving married women the same rights under the law that single women have.

This seems like a pretty obvious change that probably should have been done a long time ago, but critics both in the Virginia House and on the Internet have criticized the bill on a number of grounds. Stuart Miller wrote a critique of the law, Martial Rape — What a “Can of Worms”! that presents two arguments against the marital rape statute. Lets look at those.

First Miller opens his critique with the bizarre view that a marital rape statute might discourage men from getting married. Since data show that married women suffer less violence from their partners than do non-married women, the law might actually increase violence against women by lowering marriage rates. It is also true that children living in married households are less likely to be abused by their parents than are children living in unmarried households. Does it follow, then, that we should decriminalize child abuse among married couples? Besides, I thought it was the radical feminists who were obsessed with groups rather than with protecting the rights of individual. Presumably women who are raped by their husbands would prefer to be treated like individuals rather than figuring in some grand collective calculus by Miller and others.

The second argument Miller offers is also an argument that was made in opposition to the law on the floor of the Virginia House — some unscrupulous women might use this law to file false rape charges against their husbands to gain leverage during divorce proceedings.

Certainly, if this law passes, some women will in fact do this. So what? The fact that some women might twist and abuse the law is hardly much of a justification for jettisoning the rights of women who do not abuse the system in that way. The solution to that problem is not saying that married women must jump through all sorts of extra hoops to charge their husbands with rape, but rather demand that more be done about the problem of false allegations.

Virginia’s current law is absurdly antiquated. That a woman in Virginia cannot file a rape charge against her husband if she is currently living with him and did not sustain a serious bodily injury boggles the mind. The Virginia legislature should pass this change to its statute on marital rape, and it should also pass legislation toughening treatment of men or women who file false allegations.

Source:

Marital Rape — What a “Can of Worms”!. Stuart A. Miller, Strike-The-Root.Com, March 3, 2002.

Domestic violence a priority. Pamela Stallsmith, Virginia Times-Dispatch, February 24, 2002.

Supreme Court Declines to Consider Odd Child Support Case

On January 7, 2002, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of Morgan Wise who was ordered by a Texas court to pay child support even though DNA tests confirm he cannot possibly be the father of the boy named in the support order.

Wise’s case started in 1999 when his youngest son, Rauli, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that can occur when both father and mother carry a defective gene. Genetic testing showed, however, that Wise was not a carrier of that gene.

Further paternity tests showed that Wise was the biological father of only one of the four children born during his marriage to Wanda Fryar. The two divorced in 1996.

But as far as family courts in Texas were concerned, the paternity tests were completely irrelevant. Under common law that dates back hundreds of years, all children born within a marriage are presumed to be biologically related to the father, end of story. This may have made a lot of sense when it was literally impossible to prove paternity, but those days are long since past.

States vary widely on when paternity can be disputed. In some states, disputing paternity must be done within the first few years after a child is born. Other states have laws allowing fathers to introduce genetic evidence at any time to avoid paying child support for children whom they are not biologically related.

Jeffery Leving of the Fatherhood Education Institute argues that the Wise’s case represents a sexist approach to the obligations of parenthood. Leving writes,

What would happen if we applied the same twisted logic to a woman married to a man who fathered a child from an extramarital affair? Would we proclaim that because she was married to her husband, she is the legal mother of the child born of the affair and force her to financially support another woman’s child? We would do no such thing, yet there are men who are court ordered to pay in the analogous situation.

Leving notes that Ohio, Colorado, Iowa and Louisiana all have laws which allow men to be released from child support requirements if DNA testing proves they are not the biological father of the children named in support awards. Leving argues that the mothers in these cases should pursue the legitimate fathers of the children for child support, which certainly seems to make a lot more sense than forcing deceived fathers to continue to pay child support.

Sources:

In genetic testing for paternity, law often lags behind science. Tamar Lewin, The New York Times, March 11, 2001.

U.S. Supreme Court decision ignores men’s rights. Jeffery Leving, Fatherhood Educational Institute, January 15, 2002.

If You Disagree with Rob Okun, You’re Not a Good Father

Some feminists and feminist organizations have had a long standing animosity to the Father’s Rights movements, culminating with National Organization for Women‘s 1996 press release claiming the movement was “using the abuse of power in order to control in the same fashion as do batterers.” That animosity was on full display recently in an article penned by Rob Okun and published by Women’s eNews.

After a lengthy look at the role of father’s in family life — which Okun claims can be “a force for great good in family relations and child rearing, or a force of hostility and estrangement” — Okun informs his readers that father’s need support and a fair shake from the courts unless they are in any way involved in the Father’s Rights movement. In that case, all bets are off. Okun writes,

Many such fathers see their children’s mothers as actively trying to deny them access to their children, and more than few get involved in what are often called “fathers’ rights” groups. It’s not uncommon to see handfuls of men with signs advocating the rights of dads picketing in front of family courts in many states in most sections of the country.

…

Nonviolent fathers deserve support as they look for a fair shake in custody cases in which they have legitimate claims. But others have forfeited any such claims for support if they intimidate their children’s mothers, harass the court or affiliate themselves with groups more interested in fueling conflict than in maintaining the well-being of their children.

Presumably, Women’s eNews would not run an article from a conservative suggesting that women who spend their time picketing at NOW-sponsored events are bad mothers who have forfeited any claims for support, but it had no problem giving Okun’s article the headline, “Involved fathers care for kids, not picket courts.”

Right, and a woman’s place is at home caring for children, not in the work place.

Source:

Involved fathers care for kids, not picket courts. Rob Okun, WEnews, October 31, 2001.

United Nations Highlights Problems of Child Marriage

In March the United Nations Children’s Fund released a report highlighting the continuing worldwide problem of childhood marriage of girls. Childhood marriage is an especially acute problem in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

An extreme case is a country such as Nepal where 7 percent of girls are married before age ten and 40 percent by age 15. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, and other countries, very large percentages of girls are married before their 18th birthdays.

Attendant with child marriage are other abuses such as domestic violence and honor killings. As UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy put it, “Forcing children, especially girls into early marriages, can be physically and emotionally harmful.”

Aside from the domestic violence problems, there are also numerous risks from pregnancy-related complications for these young brides. Pregnancy-related death is the single leading cause of mortality worldwide for girls aged 15 to 19.

Source:

Child marriage ‘violates rights’. The BBC, March 7, 2001.

Even Conservative Women Find “The Surrendered Wife” Nauseating

I expected all of the liberal pundits to deplore The Surrendered Wife, but WorldNetDaily.Com’s Cynthia Grenier managed a pretty good dissection of the book in a recent column. Writing that, “I just about gagged as I began reading all these stories in the press about a new manual for women: ‘The Surrendered Wife’…”

Grenier reports that the book has sold about 100,000 copies, and you have to wonder about the sort of women (and men) who would find the book’s advice relevant to their lives. Taking her cue from author Laura Doyle’s suggestion that women should never attempt to correct men’s driving directions even if they miss the correct off-ramp on a highway and end up driving many miles out of their way, Grenier writes,

I can only wonder what in Heaven’s name any half way intelligent male would think on being allowed to drive miles and hours out of his way just to maintain his strong, manly image.

Grenier concludes her column with advice that applies equally well to men as well as women. “My advice: ‘Soften, yes; surrender, never.'” Now there’s some decent relationship advice.

Source:

What to do about the American wife?. Cynthia Grenier, WorldNetDaily, March 3, 2001.

Utah Begins Crackdown on Polygamy

Ahead of the 2002 Olympics, Utah has begun a crackdown on polygamous marriages. Although Utah agreed to outlaw polygamy as a condition of its statehood, the state has for the most part not prosecuted those who still enter into marriages with multiple partners.

Advocates of polygamy claim the government is persecuting them in much the same way it used to persecute homosexuals, while opponents of polygamy say the practice needs to be outlawed to protect young girls. Who is right?

Both sides are correct. First of all, the government should have no say in how consenting adults choose to live their lives. The Supreme Court in 1879 ruled that polygamy is not a Constitutionally protected exercise of religious freedom, but it clearly erred in that decision in much the same way it erred in ruling that the state had a compelling interest in outlawing consenting homosexual relationships.

In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that Amish children could not be forced to attend school on religious grounds which is inconsistent with the 1879 polygamy ruling, as one of the dissenting judges pointed out.

Polygamy between consenting adults — just like marriage between people of the same sex — should be legal.

On the other hand, what passes for polygamy in Utah often bears a greater resemblance to child sexual abuse than anything else.

Consider Tom Green, 52, who has had 10 wives and has been charged with bigamy and child rape among other things. Green is accused of having sex with one of his wives, Linda, when she was only 13. As prosecutor David Leavitt told the Dallas Morning News,

…this is a man who has taken 13- and 14-year-old children, deprived them of any education, married them, impregnated them, required the state to pay the bill [Green’s family is a big client of the welfare system] and has raped a 13-year-old girl. If we can’t prosecute for conduct like Tom Green’s, we have no business prosecuting crime.

Green’s case is not an anomaly. His prosecution follows on the ground-breaking 1998 prosecution of David Ortell Kingston who was sentenced to up to 10 years for incest and unlawful sexual conduct with his 16-year-old niece who was allegedly his 15th wife.

When his niece fled the marriage that had been arranged by her father, John Daniel Kingston beat his daughter and returned her to David Kingston.

These sort of practices with minors are unconscionable and have absolutely no place within constitutional protections for relationships between consenting adults. Neither, however, should our anger and disgust at the exploitation of these young women allow us to go further and advocate criminalizing consenting relationships between adults merely because they involve more adults than the state deems “normal.” Those sorts of decisions should be left up to individuals rather than the government.

Source:

Trial to test Utah’s 104-year-old ban on polygamy. The Associated Press, November 26, 2000.

Polygamy backers claim Utah bill infringes on religious freedom. The Associated Press, February 13, 2001