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Marital Immunity, Intimate Relationships, And Improper Inferences: A New Law On Sexual Offenses By Intimates , Michelle J. Anderson

Working Paper Series

Today, to one degree or another, marital immunity for sexual offenses persists in over half the states. Underlying the marital rape immunity has been the assumption that when a woman enters into a marriage, she is giving her ongoing consent to sexual intercourse. Professor Michelle Anderson argues that states must abolish this immunity to make the law formally neutral on the marital status of the parties. However, Professor Anderson argues, such formal neutrality is insufficient. The ideology of ongoing consent underlying the marital rape immunity has infected the way the legal system treats sexual offenses among intimates who are not …