united-states consent
Is it true that at one stage a husband could not rape his wife?
<p>Is it really true that up until relatively recently in the US a man could not rape his wife, because apparently at one point in time a married couple was considered one legal entity and a person cannot rape himself?</p>
<p>I just heard this once in passing in a YouTube video and was wondering if it was fact or fiction?</p>

<p>It is true that marital rape was not recognized as a legal wrong in the United States until relatively recently (the 1970s–1990s).</p>
<p>However, the reasoning was not that spouses were the same legal person. Rather, the reasoning was the legal fiction that by marriage, a wife provided prospective and irrevocable consent.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_in_the_United_States" rel="noreferrer">Source: Marital Rape in the United States (and the sources cited therein)</a>.</p>

<p>It's true that a husband could not be convicted of rape in relation to his wife, but women have always been protected from serious violence and physical injury by the law, so there was some limit to which force could be used - this might not be obvious today in a discussion about whether a wife could be &quot;raped&quot; by her husband or not.</p>
<p>It's also worth noting that this rule existed for married couples who were already expected to be together until death, not men and women generally.</p>
<p>It's better perceived as a policy of non-interference by the law into the interior content of marital relationships.</p>
