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That's the marriage debt, it applies to both spouses (wives too have a right to sex) and it's not rape, since in marriage you are presumed to give consent to sexual activity with your spouse. There was a fine-grained legal distinction that rape was sex without consent, and since married couples consented to have sex, the crime of rape could not be committed within marriage (which is not to say that the act of rape could not be committed).
Forcing someone unwilling, by threats, violence, or other coercion, is wrong. That's not what marriage is supposed to be. So even if the spouses have a right to ask for sex from each other, and merely "I don't feel like it" is not good enough reason to refuse, you should not rape your wife (or husband).
Well then what IS your prescription for the scenario where Spouse A says "Sex please" and Spouse B says "No I don't feel like it"?
I have enough Chestertonian-fence respect in the wisdom of the ten thousand generations before me to suspect that if there WAS a solution better than marital rape, they'd have thought of it.
This reminds me of many of Vox Day's blog posts back in the day. He'd say "Marital rape doesn't exist" and "Getting married implicitly gives permanent consent." People would ask him "Does that mean if your wife says 'Not tonight, I have a headache' you can just smack her around until she submits?" He would always dodge or just sneer at the question.
I thought he was being disingenuous then, and I think your "Chesterston's fence" here is a bit disingenuous.
Well, first of all, no, I think it's ridiculous to think that we should just accept the received wisdom of ten thousand generations of savages. There are a whole lot of things our ancestors believed for ten thousand generations and we only realized in the last few hundred years were stupid.
So legally, yes, a husband in most societies historically had the right to literally rape his wife (by which I mean "rape rape", not just threats, pressure, and cajoling), but even the most misogynistic cultures generally didn't think highly of a man who physically abused his wife and had to force her to have sex with him. I strongly suspect that even back in caveman days, couples with genuine affection for each other were looked on with much more respect than couples where the man was literally having to knock his wife over the head and drag her by the hair to get laid.
On to the present day, which you seem to think is missing a little something something because a man can't knock his wife over the head and drag her by the hair anymore. But presumably you didn't mean literally that. But then I would ask you the same question put to Vox Day: what did you mean? If your wife says "Not tonight, I have a headache," are you claiming that you should literally have the right to say "Tough shit, on your back," backed up by force if necessary?
So presuming the actual question is not "What if she's not in the mood sometimes?" but "What if she refuses to sleep with me, ever?" Well, obviously, your marriage is dysfunctional, and you have a range of options from counseling to divorce. Even if you're a tradcon who believes divorce should be off the table, I would think you would want to find out why your wife is refusing to have sex with you, and try to fix that. If it's a physical ailment, well, you did promise "in sickness or in health," right? If it's depression, she needs help, not being compelled to put out because it's her "wifely duty." If it's none of these things, and it's genuinely not your fault for being a jerk husband - if you're stuck with a woman who pretended to like sex until you got married and then turned it off afterwards, like in those horrible old Playboy cartoons, well, I guess if you won't divorce her, then it kind of sucks to have made a poor life choice. But seriously, what do you think should be your options in that case?
(And yes, I've made the assumption above that we are talking about the woman being the one who refuses sex, because realistically, if it's the man refusing to have sex, it's very rare that his wife has any ability to force him. But I'd say the same thing to a woman whose husband rejects her and the situation doesn't appear fixable: if you won't consider divorce, then I guess you're trapped in an unhappy marriage. Which is why I don't think divorce should be off the table.)
Well, what if your wife starts stroking you, and you say ‘ No, I have a headache’, will she start beating you? Obviously not, beatings are a different matter. But if she feels your will is not her primary concern right now, she will keep stroking despite the clear lack of consent. So is it rape? Letting your spouse do his or her thing with your body seemed for the ancients to be part of the marriage deal. We’ve altered it, but the old one seems just as legitimate. No great wrong was rectified by ‘recognizing’ marital rape. In the future, they might require written, enthusiastic consent from spouses for every touch, and that too, will be legitimate. Just as long as people understand the contract.
Of course, as a man, you could almost certainly stop her from doing the thing you don't want, whereas she probably can't stop you from doing a thing she doesn't want. Even the ancients considered marital harmony and mutual desire to be the ideal, if not always the pragmatic reality, and arguing that today your spouse should be able to "do his or her thing with your body" like it's a fleshlight or a dildo, without your participation beyond a lack of physical resistance, sounds, frankly, pretty disgusting.
When you say "No great wrong was rectified by ‘recognizing’ marital rape," do you believe that it should be legal to hold your wife down, over her screaming protests, and force your penis inside her?
If the answer is yes, then all I can say that we have very different morals.
If the answer is no, then you are admitting that laws against marital rape serve a purpose, since without them, your wife would have no legal recourse against such treatment.
As a wife, she's allowed to touch me, without warning, and even over my protests in a way that would be illegal for a stranger. You could say the marriage contract has a sexual component, and that component was and is being eroded away, that's all. The spouse is treated in sexual matters now as a stranger.
No, of course it's illegal, it's doubly illegal. She's not allowed to refuse, and he's not allowed to use force over her screaming protests. For me, both sides violate their obligations, the marriage contract is dissolved. If the contract stipulates that consent will be given, by definition no rape is possible within its confines. You don't put a rape clause in the 'you're-allowed-to-have-sex-with-me-contract', it would be like a stealing clause in a trading contract.
In the past they were hardcore about marriage, no doubt about that. Heavy on the duties. But everyone has his own preferences. I don't care much for duties and binding eternal contracts myself. But who am I to say the lighter version of marriage is the morally superior version? I'm a liberal, if people want to enter slave contracts for a while, that's their business.
Yes, obviously there is a level of implied consent between partners that does not exist between strangers (or even friends!). But you're doing the same thing Vox Day used to do:
"Marital rape literally doesn't exist, getting married implies consent."
"Okay, but does that literally mean you can physically force your wife to do things she doesn't want to do?"
"something something marriage contract sexual component"
Yeah, if your wife keeps refusing you sex (or a husband refuses his wife sex), that's obviously a marital problem and a breach of the understanding they presumably both had when they got married. That doesn't mean you have implied consent to force your partner.
You think it should be literally illegal for your wife to say "Not tonight, I'm not in the mood?"
"Consent will be given" does not mean "Consent will be given at any time on demand." Don't you think the "contract" also includes showing consideration for your partner (such as, accepting that sometimes they might not be in the mood or feeling physically up to it?)
A ridiculous analogy. An agreement to do something does not imply an agreement to always do that at any time on the terms demanded by either party, without boundaries. A trading contract doesn't mean I can break into your warehouse and take things off the shelves even if they are technically things that are part of our agreement.
Least convenient possible world. If the contract did stipulate that, what would your objection be?
I can imagine a couple having a relationship like that. It'd be considered heavy D/S nowadays ("consensual nonconsent") but as a kink thing, it's not that abnormal. Of course, marriage generally doesn't come with safewords...
Does the common marriage contract stipulate that? I'm not an expert in matrimonial laws, but don't the vows basically say "live in harmony and love each other" and leave it at that? Litigating how often your wife has to provide sexual access on first demand is among the furthest things from harmony I can imagine, and no, "there wouldn't have to be any demanding if she simply anticipated my whims and catered to them" doesn't sound like it either.
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