Today's Headline:
Immunity for marital rape being reviewed
Married women should have same protection from violence as unmarried women: Minister
'Married women should have the same access to protection from violence as unmarried women, Social and Family Development Minister Tan Chuan-Jin said yesterday. To that end, the Government is "actively reviewing" the issue of marital immunity for rape, and will give an update once it is completed.'
'In one of the firmest statements from the Government on the subject, Mr Tan emphatically told Parliament that violence against women is "unequivocally wrong".'
'Although married persons have conjugal rights over each other, such rights should be exercised within reasonable behaviour," he told the House during a debate on a proposal to express support for women's aspirations in Singapore.'
This is one of those things in life we expect to already have been in effect.
Surprised to see that in this day and age, it still requires a minister to point out that the law needs a review towards reality.
There remains a lot of slack in marital laws around the world.
Husband who steal from wife; wife who steal from husband - there's still loopholes, when the law does not allow the distinction between the act of thievery over that of conjugal sharing of properties, just become one becomes married. It is left to the judge to commiserate and each party hopes the judge rule in their favour. In such a scenario, you are left with 2 choices: suffer or divorse. Then, if the other party resists a consensual divorce, and you end up filing the divorce, there are some countries which requires that the party who initiates the divorce must pay alimony. Spouse steals from you, and spouse gets rewarded with alimony! The irony! There are records - google the news - whereby battered wives, forced to divorse to escape abusive husbands, were ordered by courts to pay the abusive parties since they initiated the divorce.
By its requirement to register it today, a degree of legality seeps into every act of marriage. It's all good when it's all good. But once it turns, that's the time many find out how the law works or don't work.
Whenever protective elements or provisions in the laws are missing, victims can find themselves in a "Hotel California" situation where "You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave."
