See - 187495.pdf
"x x x.
Rape is a crime that evokes global condemnation because it is an
abhorrence to a woman's value and dignity as a human being. It respects no
time, place, age, physical condition or social status. It can happen anywhere
and it can happen to anyone. Even, as shown in the present case, to a wife,
inside her time-honored fortress, the family home, committed against her by
her husband who vowed to be her refuge from cruelty. The herein
pronouncement is an affirmation to wives that our rape laws provide the atonement they seek from their sexually coercive husbands.
Husbands are once again reminded that marriage is not a license to forcibly rape their wives.
A husband does not own his wife's body by reason of marriage.
By marrying, she does not divest herself of the human right to an exclusive autonomy over her own body and thus, she can lawfully opt to give or withhold her consent to marital coitus.
A husband aggrieved by his wife's unremitting refusal to engage in sexual intercourse cannot resort to felonious force or coercion to make her yield.
He can seek succor before the Family Courts that can determine whether her refusal constitutes psychological incapacity justifying an annulment of the marriage.
Sexual intimacy is an integral part of marriage because it is the
spiritual and biological communion that achieves the marital purpose of
procreation. It entails mutual love and self-giving and as such it
contemplates only mutual sexual cooperation and never sexual coercion or
imposition.
The Court is aware that despite the noble intentions of the herein
pronouncement, menacing personalities may use this as a tool to harass
innocent husbands. In this regard, let it be stressed that safeguards in the
criminal justice system are in place to spot and scrutinize fabricated or false
marital rape complaints and any person who institutes untrue and malicious
charges will be made answerable under the pertinent provisions of the RPC
and/or other laws."
