The Editor, Sir:
In regard to the article by Xavier Newton-Bryant's "It's not rape. Blanket consent was given on taking vows", in the July 30, 2006 edition of The Sunday Gleaner, I searched for a hint of satire or sarcasm in your argument but found instead an immoral and dangerous argument.
A man and woman can be in the mood with things progressing toward intercourse but the minute the woman feels uncomfortable, she has the right to say NO. If a wife does not want to have sex with her husband she has the right to say NO. That may seem unfair to the man or husband but sex should always be a totally consensual act, nothing else.
Utter rubbish
Your argument that "blanket consent was given on taken vows" is an insult to women and utter rubbish. It is exactly the kind of attitude that helps to create an atmosphere of fear and retribution for Jamaican women who are victims of rape. It is entirely possible for a husband to rape his wife because rape is not about sex - it is about control, power, and violence. A marriage should never involve or be about these things. When vows are taken before God to cement the holy union of matrimony and to bring two people together, they are given to love, honour, and obey in sickness and health.
How can you even suggest that a husband lives up to these vows - particularly the bit about honouring - by raping his wife? How does even the most basic common sense dictate or even suggest that violently and forcefully extracting sex from a wife is consented to upon the taking of vows? If that truly is the interpretation of the law that you advocate and that the law holds, then I urge women not to get married, for it would seem that the sanctity and protection that marriage should afford would be destroyed because of a husband's quest for control and the law's ineptitude and injustice.
The threat of such an abhorrently violent act as rape at any time is one time too many. If a wife chooses to withhold sex from her husband that is her choice, and is probably the result of far greater problems within the marriage; perhaps counselling would be useful instead of demanding and forcing sex. Although sex is an important intimate act between a husband and wife, it is not to be a coerced act. Furthermore, the analogy of a husband raping his wife to a wife taking money from her husband's wallet is incongruent. The two situations are totally incongruent. Money, a tangible thing with definite value, cannot and should never be compared to a woman's body and the total control that she has over it, which is priceless.
Silly semantics vs women's welfare, safety
Also, your contention that "If the man has to be charged, he should be charged with some kind of assault but given the same sentence as for a rape charge" is nonsensical. If he is to be given a sentence that is similar to that which would be given for rape then why can't he be charged with rape, get the correspondingly appropriate sentence, and live with the lifetime shame of everyone knowing that he committed such an act against his wife? Let's not play the label game or silly semantics with the welfare and safety of our women.
I am, etc.,
RENEE-LAUREN ELLIS
rlve16@yahoo.com
Rosedale, NY
Via Go-Jamaica
