1.4.6: Attitudes About Marital Rape

Rape is a substantial social problem that affects millions of people worldwide regardless of race, gender, class, and sexual identity (Ferro et al. 2008; Myhill et al. 2002). Rape is also one of the most underreported crimes in the United States, partially because many victims are intimately related to the offender (Tjaden and Thoennes 2006; Allen 2007). The issue of marital rape is often overlooked, though recent statistics suggest that 10–14% of married women are raped by their husbands in the United States (Bergen and Barnhill 2006). In fact, it was not until 1993 that marital rape became a crime in all 50 states. However, by 2005, only 20 states had eliminated marital rape exemptions from state laws while in the remaining 30 states, some exemptions given to husbands from rape prosecution remained (Bergen and Barnhill 2006). The signing of the Violence Against Women Act of 2005 into law led to systematic and widespread changes in state rape laws.

To study the current attitudes about marital rape, an internet survey was conducted on 85 undergraduate students and 44 alumni from a small liberal arts college. Of the undergraduate participants, 68% identified as female and 55% of the alumni identified as female. The undergraduate participants had varied ethnicities while all the alumni described themselves as white. The survey consisted of short accounts that described a rape scene that varied in only the victim-offender relationship. Some randomly selected participants had accounts that described the offender as a neighbor, while the remaining participants shared an account that described the offender as their spouse. These accounts were rated by the participants using the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale, which is designed to assess the participants’ acceptance of rape myths. The purpose of the study was to determine if the relationship between the victim and the offender influenced how the participants rated the scenario described in the account.

Statistical techniques used on the observations from the study were used to show that participants who read the account that described the offender as a spouse were more likely to endorse false beliefs about rape than the participants who read the account that described the offender as a neighbor. Further, male participants were more likely than female participants to suggest that rape might be unintentional on the part of the perpetrator. Similarly, undergraduate participants were significantly more likely than alumni to suggest that rape might be unintentional on the part of the perpetrator (Ferro et al. 2008). Overall, while there were differences between the groups, the authors of the study found that the perceptions of rape of the participants are generally more realistic than were expected. The results of the study show that, overall, participants are not very supportive of false beliefs about rape and are generally sympathetic toward victims of rape. However, the participants were still likely to endorse certain types of rape myths such as the extent to which the offender should be held responsible for the rape, and where, when, and to whom rape can occur. Furthermore, the participants were more willing to rationalize sexual assault as accidental or uncontrollable on the part of the male perpetrator.