A marry-your-rapist law, marry-the-rapist law, or rape-marriage law is a rule of rape law in a jurisdiction under which a man who commits rape, sexual assault, statutory rape, abduction or other similar act is exonerated if he marries his female victim, or in some jurisdictions at least offers to marry her. The "marry-your-rapist" law is a legal way for the accused to avoid prosecution or punishment.
Although the terms for this phenomenon were only coined in the 2010s, the practice has existed in a number of legal systems in history, and continues to exist in some societies today in various forms. Such laws were common around the world until the 1970s. Since the late 20th century, the remaining laws of this type have been increasingly challenged and repealed in a number of countries. Laws that allow courts to authorise an underage marriage on account of the pregnancy of a female minor when she is below the age of consent, commonly with parental consent, can in practice be a way for a statutory rapist to avoid prosecution for the statutory rape of a child.
The law has been justified as recognition of the cultural value placed upon female virginity at marriage, in which "despoiled girls and women are a source of shame for their families, innocent of wrongdoing though they may be." In some cases, the perpetrator rapes the girl or woman whom he wants to marry after she previously rejected him.
Background The overwhelming majority of countries in the world do not have these laws, and, as of 2021, only 20 were believed to still have them.
Many activists and organisations believe that these laws violate the dignity of women and degrade them by allowing them to be traded as possessions between families, imply that rape is not a serious crime, and blame the victim and not the perpetrator. The UN Human Rights Chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said in 2017 that "[punishing] a rape victim by making her marry the perpetrator of a horrible crime against her – there is no place in today’s world for such hideous laws".
Furthermore, those who are against rape-marriage laws do not think victims should be left feeling this way after they have suffered an attack, or feel the need to cover up the assault by marrying the perpetrator. Opponents claim the laws promote impunity for rape, and further victimize rape victims. Thus, the social value of women, as proponents assign to family honour, female chastity and marital status, clashes with opponents' claim of women's right to individual happiness, freedom and sexual autonomy. According to Purna Sen, the policy director for UN Women, these laws were passed to normalise the unlawful sexual activities. They make the sexual relations more respectable in the society because it is considered problematic in a few cultures. Countries who have these laws fall under the category of undeveloped countries and conservative countries.
Mental health problems including PTSD, anxiety disorders, rape trauma syndrome, and depressive disorders are common in rape victims. A Taiwanese study showed that victims feared being vocal about their assault, felt guilty for shaming their families, experienced sexual shame and self blame, and developed negative views of themselves as women.
Advocates for rape-marriage laws argue that they shield the victim and her family from the shame of rape. This is based on the idea that if a girl or woman is raped, it is her own fault and she thus brings her family into disrepute. As a result, many women do not report their sexual assault because they fear this shame, and the possibility of being murdered by a family member. If a woman simply marries her rapist, she preserves her family name and avoids a life of sexual shame. This view exists despite much evidence existing that blaming the victim leads to shame, ridicule, and unnecessary psychological distress.
History Antiquity
Traditionally, the marriage of the perpetrator and the victim after the rape was often seen as an appropriate "resolution" of the situation. Among ancient cultures virginity was highly prized, and a woman who had been raped had little chance of marrying. These laws forced the rapist to provide for their victim.
Code of Hammurabi and Middle Assyrian Laws The Code of Hammurabi was composed around 1750 BCE (middle chronology), supposedly by king Hammurabi of the First Babylonian Empire. In Hammurabi §156, a woman is engaged to a man, but the man's father has sex with her before they get married. This scenario does not make clear whether the woman consented to having sex with her fiancé's father, and the woman gets to choose which man she marries, so whether or not this is a rape law is contested:
The Middle Assyrian Laws (MAL) were developed between 1450 and 1250 BCE in the Middle Assyrian Empire. (E-book edition) The 55th law, MAL 55, stipulated that if a man "took by force and ravished" a young virgin woman who was not married or pledged or asked to be married and living in her father's house, the virgin's father would be allowed to 'ravish' the perpetrator's wife in retaliation and take her as an extra wife. If the perpetrator had no wife, the father could marry his daughter off to the perpetrator for "the (extra) third in silver ... as the value of a virgin", or to another man of the father's choosing for the same price.
Susanne Scholz (2021) noted the similarities between Hammurabi §156, MAL 55, and the Hebrew Bible's Deuteronomy 22:28–29 (composed in the 7th century BCE): in each case, the punishment is financial compensation (in MAL 55 and Deut 22 to the woman's father, in Hammurabi §156 to the woman herself), and the no-longer-virgin woman must to be married off to the perpetrator or another man (in Hammurabi §156, the woman can choose which man she wants to marry; in MAL 55, her father decides; in Deut 22, she must marry the perpetrator).
Hebrew Bible
A marry-your-rapist provision is believed by some to be found in the Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy 22:28–29, which according to the New International Version reads:
Bible translations interpret the passage differently, with many modern editions translating the term as "to rape", where older translations usually preferred "to lie (with)". Similarly, most modern translations render as "to seize", whereas older translations generally preferred "to lay hold on". Finally, is almost universally translated as "to humble" in older English translations, but almost always as "to violate" in modern translations. The Good News Translation even renders the passage as "he forced her to have intercourse with him", and God's Word Translation makes it "he raped her". Irrespective of whether or not the woman had given consent to the sexual act, or will give consent to marriage, the man is required to marry her by paying her parents a dowry to settle the matter.
Some Christians believe that the command in Deuteronomy 22:28 does not refer to rape, but to a man enticing a woman to engage in consensual intercourse, as in the passage in Exodus 22:16–17, which also explicitly states the father's right to confirm or refuse the marriage. The Hebrew sometimes rendered as "rapes" here is the verb , which literally means "to lie (down)" or "to sleep"; it is sometimes used as a euphemism for "to lie/sleep (with someone)", and when the context adds force, it can mean "to rape", for example in Genesis 35:22 or 2 Samuel 13:14. Adjacent scriptures that speak of forced sexual relations with engaged (versus unengaged) virgins prescribe the death penalty for rapists (Deuteronomy 22:23–27). As apologist Kyle Butte argues, "It is clearly evident from the immediate context of Deuteronomy 22 that rape is not being discussed in verses 28–29 ... verses 25–27 give a clear instance in which rape is being discussed. ... The text says that the man who committed the crime 'shall die' (v. 25)". But not all Christian scholars agree that Deuteronomy 22:28–29 is mere consensual fornication. Eugene H. Merrill (1994) pointed out: "At first glance, the next example, the rape of an unbetrothed girl, might appear to have been a lesser offense than those already described, but this was not the case at all. First, he seized (Heb. ׂ, 'lay hold of') her and then lay down (šākab) with her, a clear case of violent, coercive behavior."
Although commentators such as John Gill (1746–1763) and Charles Ellicott (1897) who think Deuteronomy 22:28–29 describes consensual sex often compare it to Exodus 22:16–17 (which almost all scholars agree is a consensual situation), the latter does not specify that the man "violated" her, whereas Deuteronomy 22:29 does. The Hebrew word used here for "violated" is (or ), which (depending on the context) can mean "to rape, to force [sexually], to defile, to violate, to ravish, to mistreat, to afflict, to humble/humiliate, to oppress, to subject/submit/subdue, to weaken". Especially when a Hebrew verb is in the pi'el (intensifying) form, this adds force, and in Deuteronomy 22:29 is in the pi'el. In several other cases in the Hebrew Bible where this word is used to describe a man and a woman interacting, it is usually describing a man forcing a woman to have sex against her will (i.e., rape).
Twelfth century Rabbi Moses Maimonides said the man's use of force would require that he marry his victim and never divorce her:
Middle Ages and early modern period In medieval Europe, the term "rape" was sometimes used the historical sense meaning "abduct" in reference to elopement: a woman would give her consent to being abducted by the man she loved, and thus avoid asking permission from her parents to marry him.
According to Johannah Stiebert, women that were not engaged were not able to consent, so rape became a matter of male superiority. According to the Shulchan Aruch (1565), a codification of Jewish law by Joseph Karo, the girl or her father, depending on age, are given the option of demanding the man marry her in addition to paying a fine of 50 silver beyond any damages physical or mental.
19th century Article 357 of the French Penal Code of 1810 (not to be confused with the Napoleonic Code of 1804) contained a provision that if a man had 'abducted' a girl and married her, he could only be prosecuted if the girl's parents or legal guardians arranged to have the marriage annulled first. Although the law does not contain the word 'rape', it has been described as a marry-your-rapist law, which some scholars have claimed is responsible for spreading the phenomenon in the MENA region through French colonisation. Alternatively, similar legislation was spread in the region by the Ottoman Empire, based on Hanafi jurisprudence, which did explicitly mention 'rape' in abduction scenarios. Scholars continue to debate which laws derived from which.
20th and 21st century In several Middle Eastern and North African countries, marry-the-rapist laws that were adopted upon achieving independence in the mid-20th century, were carried over from various earlier periods. The origins of these laws are to be traced to a mixture of pre-existing local Arab traditions, Ottoman imperial laws and European (French and British) colonial laws. Traditionally, a woman was considered to be the property of her father. If she was raped, she was considered damaged property "so the rapist must either pay 'compensation' or accept the damaged goods" and marry the victim. To avoid paying the family, the perpetrator often chose to marry the victim, who "had absolutely no choice but to marry the rapist and spend the rest of the life" with him. In this way the victim of the assault had a harsher punishment than her attacker. Currently, India's Penal Code "makes it amply clear that marriage does not act as an absolving factor in case of rape".
Marry-your-rapist laws were common around the world until the 1970s. Since the late 20th century, the remaining laws of this type have been increasingly challenged and repealed in a number of countries.