Elders in Council,
Having examined doctrine, law, and custom, we now arrive at the solemn task of judgment, where principle must meet consequence. In my previous submission, I voted Bishop Amukwe “not guilty” of marital rape.
Making a case upon the provisions of our Constitution, I buttressed my argument with the instance of Hale’s doctrine. I therefore seek, in vain, to find why we are undecided because of certain feminist members of this honorable Council. I would like to move a motion that these feminist members be suspended from the council and their rights repealed. To be Christian and feminist is an anomaly, in that it is akin to serving God and mammon. I digress.
The phrase marital rape did not exist in early law. It emerged in the 20th-century feminist scholarship. Most scholars trace early usage to the 1970s feminist legal writing. The 1978 book, Rape in Marriage, by Diana E. H. Russell, was pivotal. Russell conducted one of the first empirical studies of rape within marriage and helped popularize the term. Honorable members, quick research will find that the phrase emerged within the Second-Wave Feminist Movement, particularly the anti-rape and domestic violence reform campaigns of the 1970s. We therefore see that marital rape reform was part of the Second-Wave Feminist Movement between the 1960s and 1980s; the anti-rape reform movement; the domestic violence law reform movement, and broader women’s rights legal equality campaigns. These are not vain repetitions. These were closely tied to the creation of rape crisis centers, reform of evidentiary rules, and elimination of spousal exemptions.
As such, these colorations begin to alter meaning. When meanings change, emotions follow suit, and so does life. Definition determines meaning, and a new phrase has been coined, greased up by victimhood, pain, and suffering to achieve a meaning that wasn’t there to begin with.
Consequently, a man taking the initiative to know his wife has become painted with the brush of sexual assault dipped in the paint bucket of domestic violence. It is visible to the blind and audible to the Deaf that these feminists have succeeded in providing definitions that carry conveniently contradictory ideas, which can best be described as square pegs in round holes.
Can two contradictory ideas coexist, nonetheless? Yes, however, the context must be appropriate for such a union. Is a wife who takes money from her husband’s wallet without his consent stealing? Do we deem her a thief? To some, it’s absurd. Being a wife allows her to do that.
Honorable members of Council, opposing counsel, advancing their arguments, cited R v R, 1991, a case where a husband attempted sexual intercourse without consent and was charged with attempted rape. The House of Lords abolished the marital rape exemption, and that was the ruling. The significance of that ruling was that it overruled Hale’s doctrine in UK law.
Likewise, opposing counsel did not fail to make mention People v Liberta. In 1984, Mario Liberta was accused of raping his estranged wife. The issue was whether New York’s marital exemption was constitutional. The New York Court of Appeals struck down the exemption as unconstitutional under equal protection. Should opposing counsel choose to make a case out of this ensemble upon the insistence of estranged status, I will eagerly furnish this Council with the instance of George IV, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Hanover from 1820 to 1830, whose attempt to divorce his estranged wife undermined the prestige of the crown.
Notable mention was, South Africa; the nation criminalized marital rape in 1993 via legislation after constitutional reform. Also, Canada, in 1983, though not a single case ruling removed the exemption via the Criminal Code reform.
Consolidating their argument, opposing counsel unashamedly presented before us the Independent Thought v Union of India (2017). This was a challenge to exception, allowing marital intercourse with minor wives. The Supreme Court of India gave a decent ruling stating that sex with a wife under 18 constitutes rape. Thus, India still retains marital representation for adult wives. In other words, an adult wife cannot be raped because marriage is a perpetual consent.
Honorable members, each society determines for itself the age of consent. Although we may not agree with some of the ages prescribed by some societies, it follows that at that age, sexual activity can occur. Violation is registered when the aforementioned ensues without the consent of either. Nevertheless, marriage entails that bodily autonomy is given away permanently by a man when he asks for a woman’s hand in marriage. A woman’s acceptance of the said proposal is the surrender of her bodily autonomy for life within the crucible of marriage. Where need be, the borders of autonomy are decided by the “community” as each lives to serve the other.
As much as I will oblige taking us through the excruciating pain of rehearsing why the shift in legal stands happened, which includes, but is not limited to, a shift from marital unity doctrine to individual autonomy; recognition of domestic violence as criminal; equal protection constitutional arguments; human rights frameworks, especially post-World War II treaties heavily influenced by the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (EDAW); I will not bore us with such details.
This is not to say that I will ignore the global legal status of marital rape as of the mid 2020s, even though opposing counsel failed to highlight the same. Over 150 countries criminalize marital rape. Some countries retain partial exemptions, and a few countries still do not recognize it as a crime.
Despite the above thoroughly convincing legal arguments, as members of this honorable Council who swore to protect the sanctity of our faith, even at our expense, we must ask ourselves, thus, as seemingly lawful as it may seem to find Bishop Amukwe “guilty”, is it expedient that we do so?
Should you lean towards the seemingly lawful thing to do, then we all must be prepared to apologize to the excommunicated sodomite Bishop, just because the law seems to permit sodomy.
However, we shall do no such thing! Our faith is not governed by man-made laws, but by the infallible and unchanging Constitution, which is God’s Word. To hang Bishop Amukwe is to send to the gallows, our faith. For what convictions will there be to pass on to our children? In the face of inconveniencing laws, what response to the trial of faith should we expect of posterity?
If any should be on trial, it should be the wife of the Bishop. Hence, I submit that the expedient thing be done: Bishop Amukwe should be found “not guilty”.
Defense counsel,
Bishop Otuodi, Esq.
