Until recently, rape in marriage was not recognised in Australia - women were deemed the property of their husbands and could not be denied sex - law enforcement were reluctant to intervene in any domestic violence.
This was traced to the extra-judicial writings of Sir Matthew Hale, a former Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench, first published in 1736 - this became known in courts as the "marital immunity".
I had no idea this existed until introduced to Glyn Scott, the women responsible for forcing the full High Court of Australia to rule on the matter and rule in her favour 5-2.
She asked me to write a screenplay about her experience - she was the victim of marital rape, brutality and other horrors, her story so appalling that I initially struggled to believe it was true - an interview in The Australian newspaper re her case and further investigation convinced me the shocking details were real and experienced by this woman at the hands of her former husband.
RAPE IN MARRIAGE no longer has a "marital immunity" in Australia, but I wonder if it has existed in other countries as recent as the past 50 years - domestic violence is a substantial issue here, I read Glyn Scott's book and it is nothing less than a horror story that no human should endure - it was an absolute struggle to adapt her book into a script.
Chanel Ashley In America rape in marriage was legal and in the 1970's a woman first reported her husband for raping her. Interestingly it was a TV show comedy Barney Miller that brought this issue to the forefront of America with an episode about a wife reported her husband for rape. It was a major event and showed how media can affect social change as after that episode American women and men called their representatives demanding action on behalf of women.
Thanks, Shawn, since I became involved in this subject matter, I'm astounded how recent this type of activity took place - the 1970's wasn't that long ago, here, the full High Court ruled as recent as 2012.