New Zealand Journal of History, 2024, 58(2): 94 - 113

Spousal immunity, a husband's exemption from the legal consequences of rape, was an English legal import that was comprehensively protected in the patriarchal colonial context of New Zealand. Spousal immunity was ended in New Zealand through the Rape Law Reform Bill No.2 (1985). Spousal immunity had existed for nearly 100 years within the legal system without challenge by legal professionals or politicians. During the reform process the vast majority of public submissions, political speeches and media coverage positioned the criminalisation of marital rape as the sensible and just thing to do. The relatively smooth passage of this significant legal reform seems incongruous with the clause's one-hundred-year history as a husband's protected and entrenched immunity. Spousal immunity provides a key example of legal and social change led by feminist action and knowledge. Feminists led change and politicians responded. This article explores how feminist legal change happens, by examining the conditions and tactics which led to the criminalisation of marital rape in 1980s New Zealand. (Author's abstract). Record #8706