Talk:Marital rape/Archive 4

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Archive 4

Remove tagged section (update: opened RfC)

Question: should the section "Legislation by country" remain in this article, considering its poor sourcing, the contradiction between sources, and the practical problems regarding this legal issue (ie. assessing the case law of all world countries). Many countries for which there is clear sourcing are already addressed in the body of the article. The question is: should we have a table which lists the legal status of all countries in the world? Note that the debate has been going on for years. An opinion from someone with a legal background would be very useful.2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 00:29, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Note: this discussion occurred before opening the rfc.

I have finally removed the section "Legislation by country", after years of debate (see all the discussions above on this page). It was tagged, as it fails WP:RS (using the press and various books- not written by legal experts- is not acceptable for legal issues); it uses outdated sources from years ago; some sources which list whether it is criminalized only refer to countries where it is explicitly criminalized (rather than included implicitly in the general law); it contradicts other sources for various countries. Please do not restore the section unless there is WP:CONS. 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 22:28, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

I have reinstated the section. There has been no WP:CONS, especially considering it has been updated today by Nederlandse Leeuw. If there is consensus to remove then fine, but it should not be removed purely based on the views of an unregistered editor. --John B123 (talk) 22:49, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

The section was tagged for years. The update was not really an update, because it left virtually all problems listed above as unsolved, and made almost no changes. It's sufficient to start reading the table and you see problems right from the beginning: ie. it lists Andorra as not criminalizing, when the US country report on Andorra says: "the law prohibits rape, including spousal rape," [1]. When a section grossly fails wp:rs,it must be removed, even more so when it's tagged.22:58, 7 October 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk)

The fact you tagged it 3 years ago does not give a consensus to remove. As stated previously it should stay until there is such a consensus. --John B123 (talk) 23:06, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Since there were no objections, and counterarguments, it can be seen as consensus. And when you have a tagged section that violates grossly WP:RS, you have to remove it, otherwise it violates wiki standards. 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 23:12, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

A section cannot stay tagged forever. This is an open discussion on whether the section should stay or not. If nobody objects and the section is not fixed in a few days, I will remove it.2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 23:17, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I object, additionally, if there is no support for retaining them I'll remove the historic tags. --John B123 (talk) 23:45, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

A source used is this article is this: [2]. It's a Guradian article about a 2011 report on laws on violence against women. But the source lists countries which explicitly criminalize marital rape; and it is completely wrong to list the counties which don't in the table as "not criminalized", implying that marital rape is legal there, when in fact it may be implicitly included in the ordinary rape law (The Guardian source is not even used consistently, because many countries which are listed as "no" in that source, are listed in this article as "yes", often based on earlier sources (a 2003 report); but others are listed as "no" based on that Guardian source).

In this article, the section 20th and 21st century criminalization refers to this report and other reports; it reads"

In 2006, the UN Secretary-General's in-depth study on all forms of violence against women stated that (page 113):[23] "Marital rape may be prosecuted in at least 104 States. Of these, 32 have made marital rape a specific criminal offence, while the remaining 74 do not exempt marital rape from general rape provisions. Marital rape is not a prosecutable offence in at least 53 States. Four States criminalize marital rape only when the spouses are judicially separated. Four States are considering legislation that would allow marital rape to be prosecuted."

In 2011, the UN Women report Progress of the World's Women:In Pursuit of Justice stated that (page 17):[24] "By April 2011, at least 52 States had explicitly outlawed marital rape in their criminal code".

If it isn't explicitly criminalized, it means that the rape law doesn't specifically refer to it for example by stating that "Marriage is not a defense" or by creating a specific "Marital rape" offense. But it doesn't necessary mean it is not implicitly included in the ordinary rape law (unless there is an exemption in it). You would have to study the jurisprudence to see the situation in such countries. 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 00:29, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Note: in Europe, Andorra, Monaco, are listed in the article here as "no", the US reports contradict this: [3], [4].

If we decide to keep the section, what sources are to be used, ie. could (the latest version) of the US country reports be used? They are by no means perfect, but much better than most of the sources we have now. Normally, we shouldn't use sources that are not legal literature. You can't just use press articles, and NGO writings are questionable too, if they're not from authors with a legal background. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 00:45, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Note again: On European Council member states: the Analytical study of the results of the 4th round of monitoring the implementation of Recommendation Rec(2002)5 on the protection of women against violence in Council of Europe member states at page 61 states that all countries in the study (46 countries, as Russia did not participate in that study) criminalize marital rape (see the table there under "rape within marriage on the same basis as rape outside marriage, it says "yes" at all countries)[5]. But in this wiki article some European countries (Andorra, Monaco, Latvia, Lithuania) are listed with "no". 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 01:09, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Feel free to correct the statuses of those European countries which you think are incorrect if you can provide more recent reliable sources for them than I have (UN 2011 report). Greetings, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 01:35, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi everyone. As you have seen, I've turned the two separate sections of lists into a single alphabetical sortable Wikitable, with an indication about the legality of marital rape and extra room for notes and explanations. An overview like this will always be a dynamic list, a work in progress, because laws change all the time. In the case of marital rape, they have been steadily moving towards criminalisation since the mid-1970s, so we can expect more recent reliable sources claiming that marital rape has been criminalised in country X to be more likely true than an older reliable source saying marital rape is legal in country X. When reliable sources date from around the same time, those who give the most context and explanation are to be preferred. It will be helpful for readers and editors alike to have notes after the 'Country' and 'Criminalised' columns to find when it was criminalised (if it was), and under which law (often an article or section in a state's penal/criminal code), how this is phrased or perhaps justified, and how this is different from earlier situations. In some cases it might not be clear in which 'camp' a country is, like Malaysia, where you can't call sexual violence within marriage 'rape', although it is de facto treated as such (so I labelled it 'Yes/No').

I'm willing to help verify or falsify the reliability of all sources provided throughout the years so far, and have already made a start in doing so. In my view, 2A02 is right that we should provide reliable sources for everything, and the most recent we can find. But we must start somewhere. I've found a UN source for Albania, and used the UN 2011 Women report for the other countries that missed citations (in some cases leading to a different status). To indicate these statuses may be outdated, I added 'As of 2011' (or a different year) in the 'Notes' column, so that readers and editors alike will know this figures may be out of date, and there could be a more recent reliable source out there that says something else, and we'll have to use that to replace to old one cited on this page.

The demand for all country statuses to be completely up to date (to 2018) is unrealistic, but if we work together, we can improve the list a lot. Especially in the case of older sources saying marital rape is legal, I think we should add "As of [year]"; we don't want to accidentally misinform people that some act is legal that has been criminalised in the meantime. I also noticed 152 countries are mentioned here, while there are about 200 countries in the world, so a lot are still missing. Note that User:Carwil has provided lots of sources in the source code of their map File:Marital rape criminalized map.svg. In order to access those, you need to download the file and open it with Notepad or a similar programme, and you'll find them (so it's incorrect to say that the map does not mention any sources). I would recommend us to first get this overview in order, agree on which sources are most reliable and recent and how these are to be understood, and then finally based on that update the map and add it back to the page. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 01:33, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Apart from lack of reliability, another problem is misuse of sources. The 2011 report is arguably reliable, but what it does is list countries which explicitly criminalize marital rape (countries where the rape law makes specific reference to it - by excluding marriage as a defense/exemption or by creating a specific 'marital rape' crime). So while that report can be used as a source for countries which criminalize marital rape, it can't be used for listing countries where marital rape is legal, because not being explicitly criminalized =/= being legal. It may still be included implicitly in the ordinary rape law (unless there is a marital exemption in that law). More explanations are provided in the article itself:

Determining the criminal status of marital rape may be challenging, because, while some countries explicitly criminalize the act (by stipulating in their rape laws that marriage is not a defense to a charge of rape; or by creating a specific crime of 'marital rape'; or, otherwise, by having statutory provisions that expressly state that a spouse can be charged with the rape of their other spouse) and other countries explicitly exempt spouses (by defining rape as forced sexual intercourse outside of marriage; or forced sexual intercourse with a woman not the perpetrator's wife; or by providing in their rape provisions that marriage is a defense to a charge of rape), in many countries the ordinary rape laws are silent on the issue (that is, they do not address the issue one way or another)—in such cases, in order to determine whether marital rape is covered by the ordinary rape laws it must be analyzed whether there are judicial decisions in this respect; and former definitions of the law are also important (for instance whether there was previously a statutory exemption that was removed by legislators for the purpose of implicitly including marital rape). 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 02:10, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) wrote "we don't want to accidentally misinform people that some act is legal that has been criminalised in the meantime." Well, this is exactly what that section is doing on so many countries; and it's not only because it "has been criminalised in the meantime", it's also because the section lists countries as "no" merely because they are not listed as having explicitly criminalized in that 2011 report.

For now I changed Andorra, Monaco, Latvia, based on the Analytical study of the results of the 4th round of monitoring the implementation of Recommendation Rec(2002)5 on the protection of women against violence in Council of Europe member states [6] and the US Human rights reports.[7], [8], [9]. (Note that Andorra & Monaco are also parties of the Istanbul Convention). Latvia is listed as "no", when in fact the US report says this on it: "Spousal rape is explicitly considered rape with “aggravated circumstances.” " There are very serious problems with that section, and either they get solved urgently, or it should be removed. Each country should be carefully examined. 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 07:04, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Some clear contradictions between what this article says and what the US Human Rights Reports say:

Angola, listed here as 'no', but the US report says: "Rape, including spousal rape, is illegal and punishable by up to eight years’ imprisonment" [10]

Dominica, listed here as 'no', but the US report says: "The law criminalizes rape of men or women, including spousal rape. " [11]

Fiji, listed here as 'no', but the US report says: "[...] there was a large increase in the reported number of rape cases this year, due at least in part to greater awareness that a spouse can be charged with rape of his/her partner. [...] The law recognizes spousal rape as a specific offense." [12]

Grenada, listed here as 'no', but the US reports says: "The law criminalizes rape of men or women, including spousal rape"

Guatemala, listed here as 'no', but the US report says: " The law criminalizes rape of men or women, including spousal rape" [13]

Vietnam, listed here as 'no', but the US report says: "It also criminalizes rape, including spousal rape, for men and women." [14]

Do people still think that this section is ok, and we should just "let it be"? And the countries above which I used as an example are countries where there is an unequivocal claim by the US reports that marital rape is illegal, without even including those countries where the reports still suggests it is illegal, but in a more ambiguous way (ie, for El Salvador it says "The law criminalizes rape of men or women, and the criminal code’s definition of rape may apply to spousal rape, at the judge’s discretion." [15]

As I see it either we accept a US report for a country as being, by itself, a reliable source, and, as such, we change these countries to "yes"; or we recognize that there is a contradiction between the US reports and whatever source is listed here, and as such, we remove that country. Personally I prefer the second option, but I'm open to other views. These countries, however, cannot stay any longer as listed with "no", the table must be changed quickly. I'm waiting for feedback. 2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 12:44, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. A few points to consider:

• • I find the original Rfc was worded in a non-neutral manner and reflected the OP's POV.
  • The first question should be do we need a table. Although much of the information is available within the body of the article, in my opinion a 'view at a glance' table is a positive addition to the article.
  • The press and NGOs are accepted as RS for legalities all over WP, I don't see that the criteria for RS should be changed for this article.
  • As a general legal principle (and I'm not aware of any countries that don't follow this principle), legislation applies to everybody unless certain groups are specifically excluded from the legislation, or the legislation is limited to specified groups. In countries where there is general rape law but no specific spousal rape laws, to question whether the rape law applies within marriage is akin to asking if speeding laws apply to Ferraris as Ferraris are not specifically mentioned in the legislation.
  • My experience with US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (in other areas) is that they are generally correct but occasionally get it wrong.
  • As mentioned previously, the table can never be 100% accurate as of today as there may have been changes recently. Using 2017 data, and marking 'as of 2017', is as close as we can get. This applies both to the table and also the body of the article.
  • Whilst a simple 'legal/illegal' covers most countries, there are some cases where the law doesn't fall into a simple yes or no. (El Salvador where it's at the judges discretion, as mentioned above, is an example). It may be that in some countries rape laws are made at State level rather than Federal level so could vary from state to state within the country. We therefore need additional categories.
  • I propose we use the US 2017 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as a base for the table and then if legislation within a country changes, or if the US report is inaccurate for that country, update the entry accordingly.

--John B123 (talk) 16:48, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Couple of things on what John B123 (talk) states above:

The press and NGOs are accepted as RS for legalities all over WP, I don't see that the criteria for RS should be changed for this article

That depends on the type of press and NGOs, as well as the types of legalities. If you're talking about BBC, for instance, it's normally allowed, but not The Sun. And the assessment of a journalistic source sometimes needs to be done also on the individual article within a specific context, not only on the publication. On NGOs, it would depend on whether it's a major, recognized NGO, or some obscure one. With regard to legalities, the standards would differ on whether you're talking about a clear-cut issue, or a very complex legal issue (the latter types being subject of debate even among legal academics, especially in civil law legal systems).

As a general legal principle (and I'm not aware of any countries that don't follow this principle), legislation applies to everybody unless certain groups are specifically excluded from the legislation, or the legislation is limited to specified groups. In countries where there is general rape law but no specific spousal rape laws, to question whether the rape law applies within marriage is akin to asking if speeding laws apply to Ferraris as Ferraris are not specifically mentioned in the legislation.

Here you are wrong on the issue of rape. While as a "general legal principle" what you say is true, it did not historically (and still in some countries today) apply to rape. Rape was understood as an act done without consent, and by marriage a woman was deemed to have consented to sexual intercourse on demand (according to social, religious and legal marriage regulations) so she could not have been 'raped' by her husband, because the sex was deemed 'consensual' regardless of circumstances. This was the predominant view in most jurisdiction until quite recently (both common law and civil law) and still is in some parts of the world. In many jurisdictions, this was codified in the statutory law (ie. defining rape as forced sexual intercourse outside of marriage) but in others it simply followed as a "logical" conclusion of what marriage was (legally and socially) and the courts followed this, even without a marital exemption in the rape law. Also, until recently rape was classified as a crime against honor or morals (rather than a crime against the person) and this led courts again to the "logical" conclusion that it can't be applied in marriage. Anybody who knows a little legal history is aware of this. And if you go even further back time, many legal systems allowed the use of 'moderate' violence (chastisement) against the wife by the husband if it was for a 'legitimate' purpose, which included sexual intercourse. So there was no need for an exemption in the rape law, the courts simply applied the rape law in the "logical" way. Also, wives were legally obligated to obey their husbands and could be coerced into doing so. Obviously, today such views are condemned internationally, and have been largely abandoned, but there are still countries and their legal systems where they are prevalent. However, it is completely wrong for us to list a country in this article as "no" simply because it does not explicitly criminalize marital rape, and this needs to be changed quickly.

My experience with US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (in other areas) is that they are generally correct but occasionally get it wrong. [...] I propose we use the US 2017 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as a base for the table and then if legislation within a country changes, or if the US report is inaccurate for that country, update the entry accordingly.

You are right, but the "occasionally get it wrong" is the problem here. Also how do you determine "or if the US report is inaccurate for that country". My view is that where there is a contradiction between recent sources, the country should not be listed at all. Ideally, the US reports should be backed by at least one other reliable source.

2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:BC19:AEF5 (talk) 18:50, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Agree with your comments about sources, and the need to look at them in context. However that's not the same thing as using legal sources only.

The World Bank has recently published it's 2018 'Women, Business and the Law Report'. This covers marital rape laws and is cited by the UN in 'Facts and figures: Ending violence against women'. The report presents the information as 'Does legislation explicitly criminalize marital rape?' and 'If there is no specific provision that explicitly criminalizes marital rape, can a woman otherwise file a criminal complaint against her husband for rape?' (It might be good to add if there is an explicit marital rape law into the table in this article). In my previous experience with World Bank data, it has always been good and I've never found any inaccuracies. Perhaps using both World bank and Country Reports data for the table is the way forward. Where there are discrepancies between the two, further sources could be sought. --John B123 (talk) 21:17, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I'll be brief this time. I'm glad to see 2A02 added reliable, more recent sources for Andorra, Latvia and Monaco, thank you :) . I've checked and Wikified them. I agree with the general suggestion that this section should be corrected and improved soon (rather that removed), and it looks like we three are willing and able to do that, if we cooperate well. I'll do more tomorrow. Good night, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:51, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for tagging me above. After a long stint of updating the map and having the hidden sourcing (and clashes with the on-page list) be a point of contention here, I decided the best approach was to emulate tables like Same-sex union legislation. To that end I created a user page here: User:Carwil/Marital rape laws by country. I strongly recommend distinctly describing the form of criminalization (or banning under civil law) that applies, and use these terms: Criminal code (non-explicit), Criminal code (explicit), Criminal code (distinct offense), Court decision. I wish I had time to collaborate this month.--Carwil (talk) 17:29, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Lithuania should not be listed as a "no". It is listed "no" based on the US report which states "Rape and domestic violence are criminal offenses, but no law specifically criminalises spousal rape." The report, however, does not say that marital rape is excluded from the ordinary rape law. The view that marital rape is legal in Lithuania is contradicted by 2 sources:

• 'Women, Business and the Law Report', which was suggested above as a source, (section Protecting women from violence) has these 2 questions: [16]

Does legislation explicitly criminalize marital rape? Answer: No

If not, can a wife file a complaint against her husband for rape or sexual assault? Answer: Yes

• Analytical study of the results of the 4th round of monitoring the implementation of Recommendation Rec(2002)5 on the protection of women against violence in Council of Europe member states

at page 61, in the table, at the question on criminalization of rape within marriage on the same basis as rape outside marriage, it says "yes" [17].

If it helps, here is a summary of the dialogue at the review of a periodic report of Lithuania on its implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in 2018): (Follow-up Questions by Experts) "Were there any plans to explicitly criminalize marital rape?" (Replies of the Delegation) "Marital rape was punishable as any other type of rape." [18] This can't be used as a source, but it seems to confirm what the other sources say, namely that marital rape, while not explicitly criminalized, is included in the ordinary rape law.2A02:2F01:5DFF:FFFF:0:0:50C:5337 (talk) 03:24, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for this correction 2A02, I referenced your first source and moved Lithuania back to 'Yes'. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:16, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Updated table

I've updated the table and am confident the information within the table is now accurate.

Where the 2018 World Bank and 2017 are in agreement I've updated the refs and added some comments.

The 2017 country reports have been ambiguous in a few cases, just stating marital rape is not specifically criminalised but not saying if general rape laws apply. In a few other cases the two reports didn't agree. In these cases I have looked for other sources. In most cases there are multiple sources supporting one or the other.

Where there has been a change in status from yes to no or vice versa, I have looked for other sources to confirm this is correct. Where there has been a change from no to yes due to new legislation, I've tried to include the legislation in the comments.

The situation in El Salvador has very little information available online. The few sources available aren't in agreement. I made the status 'unclear' and listed the different opinions.

Are we happy to remove the disputed tag now? --John B123 (talk) 20:44, 18 October 2018‎ (UTC)

Thanks so much, John! You've done way more than I have when I first converted the columns into a combined list with notes. The information is now as up-to-date and complete as possible. :) I think the disputed tag can be removed now. I'm also happy to cooperate with you in the future on this and similar topics. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:10, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

It's now a good place to start from. I think it might be better split into sections as suggested by Carwil and demonstrated at User:Carwil/Marital rape laws by country. This would of course make a lot of the existing comments redundant, but adding the relevent legislation into the comments would enhance the table imo. --John B123 (talk) 17:56, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Split article

The article is now way above the 'Almost certainly should be divided' size in the WP:TOOBIG guidelines. The table would probably be able to stand on its own in say Marital rape laws.

Any thoughts? --John B123 (talk) 20:49, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking the same. "Marital rape laws" looks like a good title to split the table to. The current article has 270 KB. Before we started converting the legislation columns into a table on 7 October, it had 185,766 bytes, so it was already a bit too long.

Especially the sections about the situation in the UK (England and Wales) seem overly detailed for an article meant to encompass a global phenomenon, so they may be split off for a separate article as well. This should be distinct from the more general articles on Sexual offences in the United Kingdom and Rape in English law. This new article could be modeled on Marital rape (United States law).

The section "legal changes" is telling in prose basically the same information as the laws table does. Maybe we should consider them duplicates, condense the section and refer to the table with a 'Main article' template under the section heading?

There are various other unsourced or poorly sourced sections that don't fit the article well, that need justification for inclusion or perhaps are better integrated into other sections or moved to other articles. These are "Marriage after rape" (about a fundamentally different phenomenon on which I have already written the marry-your-rapist law article), "Wife-on-husband violence" and "Same-sex couples" (poorly sourced but worth telling), "Universal lived experience" (poorly sourced and I don't understand it well; perhaps can be integrated into Sustaining factors or Prevalence). Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:40, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

All of your suggestions make sense.

• Looking at other article, the title most commonly used is of the format "Laws regarding .." (such as Laws regarding rape), so Laws regarding marital rape would be more consistent with other articles of this type.
• The UK section does need splitting off into say Marital rape (United Kingdom law) and just an overview remaining here.
• The 'Legal changes' section could be trimmed a bit, but I think it's a useful history about the evolution of marital rape laws. Whether it belongs here or on the proposed page Laws regarding marital rape is another matter.
• The other sections you mentioned need cleaning up/merging/moving. It may be that once we start working on them, the best way of dealing with it will evolve.
• I haven't closely looked at marry-your-rapist law, but when I was updating the table I noticed a few countries had repealed the marry-your-rapist law, so the article may need an update.

Cheers --John B123 (talk) 17:27, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Comment: For "by country" articles, we use "by country" titles. So "Marital rape laws" or "Laws regarding marital rape" should be "Rape laws by country" "Marital rape laws by country," if the article will essentially be a list like the "Legislation by country" section is, and maybe even if it's not a list but is focused on rape laws in different countries. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:59, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we have the "Laws regarding rape" title, but it's not a list. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:03, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: Thanks for the input. As far as the article is concerned, I'm not that fussed about the title, but for consistency of titling across WP "Marital rape laws by country" makes sense. --John B123 (talk) 08:22, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I meant "Marital rape laws by country." I corrected my wording on that above. On a side note: Remember that there's no need to ping me at articles I'm watching. I prefer not to be pinged in those cases. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:29, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I did assume you meant "Marital rape laws by country." Noted regarding pinging. --John B123 (talk) 08:57, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I just want to bring up that in numerous countries, the legality of marital rape is determined by court rulings. So perhaps Legality of marital rape by country? Similar naming issues have come up at Same-sex union legislation / Status of same-sex marriage.--Carwil (talk) 12:41, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Although I'm not sure I'd describe the number of cases as "numerous", you are right about the naming. Not sure "by country" is needed? (Legality of polygamy, Legality of euthanasia etc). --John B123 (talk) 13:11, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on the title of the future article tbh. @John I last updated marry-your-rapist law in May 2018, I just checked again and I think the article is still up to date. Were the countries perhaps Denmark, Jordan, Tunisia, Lebanon, Morocco, Bahrain and/or Palestine? If so, I've got them covered already. :) Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:00, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I think it was a couple of Arab countries but don't remember which ones I'm afraid.

I've started working on the new article at Draft:Marital rape laws by country, (we can move it to whatever name is decided on when the time comes). It's some way from being finished, I'm trying to add in more of the legal justification for the situation rather than just a 'yes' or 'no' which is very time consuming. Cheers --John B123 (talk) 18:14, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi John, thanks for starting up a new draft. I support further clarification of the legal status, although I'm not sure if we should let go of the Yes/No column, let alone split up the table by letter sections. This defeats my purpose of having a sortable wikitable so you can more easily compare groups of countries. My idea of improving the wikitable is more along the lines of user:Carwil's draft User:Carwil/Marital rape laws by country. Carwil's 'current status' column is comparable to our 'criminalised' column to show whether a country criminalises marital rape, and I would recommend a separate column for 'Type of legal act' to explain how a country (if applicable) criminalised (or legalised) it (Criminal code (explicit or non-explicit, separate offence or falling under a general rape law) or by court decision), and yet another column for 'Date of act' to show when the country did. (I don't think we need columns with multiple dates; if it was criminalised more than once, we can state that in the notes). Making all of this sortable in these 5 columns (Country, Criminalised, Type of legal act, Date of act, Notes) provides the reader with a much easier overview of the information. This makes it possible to read the table like a story, e.g. 'Belgium (Country) criminalised (Yes) [marital rape by] court decision (Type of legal act) [in] 1979 (Date of act); the judge ruled that a husband has the right to sex with his wife, but Belgian law did not allow citizens to take their rights by force. The criminal code was amended in 1989 to treat marital rape the same as other forms of rape. (Notes)' What do you think of that idea (based on Carwil's draft)? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 01:12, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I think the five column structure works. I would change the "criminalised?" column into legal status, which could include "Legal," "Civil offense," "Criminal offense (lesser charge than rape)," "Criminal offense," and "Criminal offense (aggravated form of rape)."--Carwil (talk) 15:54, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I did start making the draft as per Carwil's draft, which splits the table by legislation type, but abandoned that as it seemed the biggest sections would be 'Criminalised but not sure of how and Legal but not sure of how. (Although I'm not sure, having researched further, if that is the case).For editing I find it far easier to have it split into small sections. Once all the information is in the table it's not to difficult to stitch all the sections together, add columns etc.

Before deciding on the format of the final version, we need to understand how the end user is going to use the table(s). If someone just wants to know what the legality is in say Somalia, splitting alphabetically is the easiest way for them to navigate to the information, rather than scrolling down the full table. Splitting by legislation type would make it more difficult to find an individual country. If someone wants to know which counties explicitly criminalise it then split by legislation is ideal. We need to find the best compromise between simple and advanced users, with some sort of bias towards who is going to use the page most (although this may need a crystal ball).

There are disadvantages to long tables from a usage point of view. People's attention span on web pages is far shorter than for printed matter. If they cant find the information they in the first two screenfuls they tend to give up. Although probably not applicable here as the columns are generally self-explanatory, one of the disadvantages of long tables is that if you need to scroll down a long way to find the row you want, you have no idea what the columns mean. You mave to scroll back up to find the headers and then scroll back down again.

Tables really only work on desktops. On mobiles they can become a disaster. As more than 50% of internet useage is from small screen devices (mobiles etc) (the exact figure varies dependant on source) we need to be thinking about the page on mobiles as well as desktop. As the screens are narrower, the text within a cell spreads over more lines lengthening the table considerably. This is made worse as on most mobiles you cant grab the scroll bar on drag it down, you have to swipe through each screen.

Whilst tables generally take the width available to them (if you don't set a width), there is a minimum width for any table. This is set by the length of the longest word in each column plus padding and borders. If this minimum width is greater than the screen width, then we get horizontal as well as vertical scrolling. Obviously the more columns you have the more likely this is to happen. If you look at List of members of the United Nations Security Council#Non-permanent (1966–present) for example, it just becomes a collage of flags on a mobile. Again we need to compromise, and find a balance between desktop and mobile. --John B123 (talk) 17:38, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Edit to Add: I have made a couple of mock-ups on my sandbox to illustrate the above. The first one is the existing table in this article, the other is the first table from User:Carwil/Marital rape laws by country. --John B123 (talk) 21:26, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

So, I see three natural ways in to viewing this data: by country, by date (i.e., what is the historical trajectory?), and by status. The breaks in name of country are unnatural ("A – F") and countries have multiple names in some instances, so that kind of break is not good. The breaks by date are arbitrary, and we may not have dates for everything. So, a break by legal status is useful. I would recommend legal/not legal as the only break and put the details of illegality in a field.

Re tables and scrolling: We're not going to avoid having a big chunk of table (whether subdivided or not), but we can avoid the reader having to scroll back to the heading to understand each item. That means no "Yes"/"No" fields, since they only make sense if you can see the heading. Other shortening things: No flags; years for dates.--Carwil (talk) 14:37, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm still working on the draft but the research is taking far longer that I thought it would. --John B123 (talk) 20:21, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Okay, patiently waiting for you to do the research you deem is necessary. Feel free to contact me/us when you think you're ready. :) Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 05:54, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw and Carwil: I have completed the research at last. The draft needs tidying up, copyediting etc. We also need to add an introduction, decide a title and which format to use (subdivisions, columns etc). --John B123 (talk) 10:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Fix references

Large section with references in parentheses instead of properly cited Spaceman912 (talk) 16:20, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Violence/abuse edit explanation

@Flyer22 Reborn:. Recently the lede stated that *subject matter* need not involve violence, just to immediatly state that it is a form of violence (domestic violence). Since domestic violence and domestic abuse are treated as synonyms in the article on domestic abuse, I thought it was better to use that wording, and avoid an explicit contradiction. (The definition of violence is obviously a tricky issue. In any case, I think the intention is clear, and unchanged by the edit.) Greetings, St.nerol (talk) 12:49, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

St.nerol, no need to ping me since this article/talk page is on my watchlist. As for this and this, it seems to me that the "need not involve violence" piece is meant to be "need need not involve physical violence." You know, since domestic violence is also violence, including when it's not physical. Violence is not only physical, as made clear by the Violence article. I will go ahead and change the text back to its original wording while clarifying "physical violence." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:23, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

'Wife-on-husband violence' section misrepresents cited material

Section 8 of this article, on wife-to-husband sexual abuse and violence, includes the following sentence: 'One study that looked at lifetime experiences of marital and cohabitating partner violence found nearly equal rates of victimization among men and women (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000).' In fact, the cited article by Tjaden and Thoennes argues the opposite claim. The abstract of the Tjaden and Thoennes article is unequivocal:

'Using data from a telephone survey of 8,000 U.S. men and 8,000 U.S. women, this study compares the prevalence and consequences of violence perpetrated against men and women by marital and opposite-sex cohabiting partners. The study found that married/cohabiting women reported significantly more intimate perpetrated rape, physical assault, and stalking than did married/cohabiting men, whether the time period considered was the respondent's lifetime or the 12 months preceding the survey. Women also reported more frequent and longer lasting victimization, fear of bodily injury, time lost from work, injuries, and use of medical, mental health, and justice system services.'

The section should be rewritten to reflect the fact that women are substantially more likely to report intimate partner violence than men, or the citation should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C0:CA00:5798:D0B1:FAB9:7667:474A (talk) 00:37, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

what about islam?

? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.64.206.155 (talk) 18:02, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Pakistan

I think we can certainly say that marital rape is a crime in Pakistan as the law that was allowing marital rape in the past was abrogated (The Enforcement of Hudood Ordinance, 1979).

• The fact that the law isn't enforced when it comes to marital rape, doesn't make marital rape any legal (especially when it isn't enforced in most of the countries). The problem of legality and the one of enforcement of the law are very different: legality refers to the solution prescribed by the law and enforcement refers to what happens in practice.
• Also, the interpretation is very simple using the principle "ubi lex non distinguit nec nos distinguere debemus" (Where the law does not distinguish, neither should we distinguish) especially when we think that in the past the law did distinguish that way that marital rape would be legal. The new definition of rape does not distinguish anymore.
• I suggest this source as reference ([19]) since it seems professionally written in contrast with the other sources written by confused journalists. --Kotys ek Beos (talk) 20:03, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

@Kotys ek Beos: The source you give is a blog, which is not considered a reliable source. --John B123 (talk) 20:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I am sorry, you're right. Maybe I should replace it with this source ([20]) which suggest that marital rape is a punishable crime in Pakistan since 2006 (This odious qualifier was removed with the passing of the “Women’s Protection Act 2006”. In other words, before 2006, it stated “A man is said to commit rape who has sexual intercourse with a woman who is not his wife” which means that essentially, the law did not see marital rape as an offense before 2006.), but unfortunately the law is often abusively not enforced (The ambiguity has produced a loophole that is abused by local police, families and even the lower courts. The courts refuse to convict, citing the lack of a proper and detailed case.). --Kotys ek Beos (talk) 08:52, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

False claims

Most accusations are false. Egon20 (talk) 21:33, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

References

Reference does not support your claim. The study cited in the BBC article was published in 2014 and concluded the majority of rape claims reported in new deli in the preceding year were false. Most accusations being false in one city over a period of one year does not support the blanked statement "Most accusations are false". Furthermore, your source notes weaknesses with the study and includes differing opinions on the matter. The Elysian Vector Fields (talk) 00:40, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

A woman who got married to a man who was abusive

Marital violence 129.205.208.50 (talk) 07:32, 21 November 2022 (UTC)