ON today’s front page of The Tribune, Bishop Laish Boyd expresses the view of the Anglican Diocese on the issue of marital rape laws.
Many viewpoints have already been expressed on the issue – from those denouncing such laws to those who are ardent supporters. Despite all that has been said already on the topic, Bishop Boyd’s views are very well worth considering.
He spells out first of all that the diocese supports the proposed amendments to the Sexual Offences Act, and says that “wherever rape happens it is called rape”.
He said: “It is not an act of love by any stretch of the imagination. Force is used to overpower a person who does not consent to the act. A fundamental human right for all persons is to have equal protection under the law without discrimination. No person whether single or married should be subject to degrading and violent behaviour.”
Equal protection. Weigh those words carefully. The same action carried out against a single woman is currently treated differently if carried out against a married woman. There stands an inequality.
More than that, though, Bishop Boyd spells out what such an act of violence means in the context of marriage, as understood by the Anglican church.
He said: “Marriage is a sacrament before God where persons covenant to love and protect each other until death. Rape is not love or protection.”
He added: “It is acknowledged that the institution of marriage implies a consent of the parties to love each other sexually, however it cannot be reasonably interpreted that this consent is given only once on the marriage day and lasts until death or until the dissolution of the marriage.”
Bishop Boyd clearly understands the delicacy of some areas of the debate, calling it a “difficult, sensitive and delicate issue”, but made clear “a spouse is entitled to the control of his or her body, and should only willingly give in when he or she wishes. If there is a problem with a spouse being willing to give consent, there is a fundamental concern with the marriage itself and the parties should seek spiritual and professional help.”
He concluded: “If the sex is taken without that consent, it is rape.”
The debate about marital rape has been going on for many years now – with even a UN representative highlighting it as the major area where action needed to be taken to prevent violence against women.
The recent University of The Bahamas survey reported in The Tribune that stated one in 12 married woman had been raped by their partners was a wake-up call to the scale of the problem.
There has been long-running, determined campaigning by activists seeking for the law to change to make marital rape illegal – no matter what the government’s press secretary, Clint Watson, might have claimed when he said that such groups had been “quiet” on the issue. They haven’t, and he has admitted he was wrong. They were loud enough, perhaps he just wasn’t listening. He does, of course, have a platform he could offer them, the podium at the Office of the Prime Minister, if he truly wants to help amplify their voice.
The scale of the problem has been highlighted, the government has previously made international commitments on the issue, and there appears to be an alignment in terms of government proposals and the response from the community.
But in the move towards turning that proposed legislation into reality, voices such as Bishop Boyd’s are potent. He talks of love in a marriage. There is no love in an act of rape. Someone who perpetrates such an act does not love their partner. Violence of any kind has no place in a marriage, and anyone considering such an act needs, as Bishop Boyd says, “spiritual and professional help”.
When people marry, they promise to love. Above all, love. What this law would do is offer protection for those who are subject to a crime committed by someone who no longer respects that command to love.
We commend Bishop Boyd, and urge our readers to listen carefully to his words.
We would also recommend that readers read the second article featuring Bishop Boyd, on page three of today’s Tribune, where he talks of issues of transparency, poverty and crime.
His is a reasoned voice, and one to which it is well worth listening.
Comments
birdiestrachan 1 year, 6 months ago
When the Bishop says the anglican diocese is he speaking for the members of the church or did the priest take a vote OR is it just him, how is it that marital rape has become such an issue since the PLP become the government
Could this be what the FNM papa was talking about? An upset
birdiestrachan 1 year, 6 months ago
The headlines did say Anglicans so they must have taken a vote
newcitizen 1 year, 6 months ago
You think there should be a vote on whether people should be allowed to rape other people? I'm pretty sure that has already been settled. Did you rape someone Birdie? Are you hoping to absolve yourself in someway?
birdiestrachan 1 year, 6 months ago
-paragraph 12 of what the Bishop said that a consent given only once on the marriage day can not
really last
until death so what part off the marriage vows are until death
sheeprunner12 1 year, 6 months ago
The good bishop needs to pay attention to his own priests who are increasingly becoming wayward and dysfunctional in their personal and clerical lives. He needs to listen to parishioners and not just the church elite.
He cannot try and fix the country while his own denomination is going to hell in a handbasket.
jamaicaproud 1 year, 6 months ago
Seems like this chat section could be full of Rapah bulls.Or domestic abusers. How something so clear can be subject to debate is beyond me.
SP 1 year, 6 months ago
The Anglicans are way, way, way, too gay to have a respectable opinion on marriage between a man and a woman.
Laish Boyd should be expressing his view on abusive homosexual relationships!
carltonr61 1 year, 6 months ago
I have read USA Federal Marriage Rape Law. But each State has its say. Though Law, spousal rape alone could not be proven. Physical battery assault with rape often gave convictions for proven physical harm or weapons threats. Some States refuse to sign on. Females who are professional and financially secure most often sought divorce. Attempts by UN to influence Africans varied from big city to country, where females most often subscribed as their duty to love and sex their husbands with the idea of rape by husbands being found brutal insensitive and offensive. Americans over 60 never consider the thought according research. the research is still ongoing on why loyal wives trigger a no response to sex after decades of marriage.and why husbands with no records of abuse is accused. USA and Croatia data that lead to marital rape 99% often was attained from Abuse Crises Centers or hospitals visits for physical injury. In Tennessee and Texas spousal rape lawyers most often take on millionaire clients who pay out to avoid public disgrace as rape is almost impossible to prove in marriage.
carltonr61 1 year, 6 months ago
Bishop Laish Boyd has catered to the institution of Holy Matrimony for decades and counseled thousands of couples making him a greatly prized person with full knowledge of the spiritual, emotional, tricks and sophistication of marriage, dignity and human betrayal. The denial of sex it seems with the aggravation, torture, abandonment, psychological damage, physical pain. cruelty, deadly brain popping stress and tears seems to make happy some sadistic torturers here who cheer for masochistic rights for wives.
When women got married with their virginity intact would she cry rape on that first night? Sexual foreplay, style or behavior before marriage most often stays the same for decades after the marriage. Mutual sexual consent pre marital with sex only being denied because of child birth or menstruation continues should marriage occur. But after marriage then to hear "NO this is my body if you have sex it is forced and rape and the police is coming." This goes on for weeks then some intervention is needed to determine who has a problem. Within the loving bond of marriage a painful bondage could develop for couples, as educated and brainwashed by paid agents. If a wife says my husband cannot rape me but being out in the world begging for a quiet pillow, shelter in a room full of stranger, some deranged, no privacy is rape upon the human sanctity. The human misery of family roots being torn out of the ground, suffering children,must be defended. the selflessness and strength of a tree trunk that grows branches, flowers and fruits then seeds that fall and some may grow. But there will always be that lonely, baron prickle patch being scorched in the sun cannot take care of itself like the world owes it something that curse every great Holy marriage tree. God made the prickles Bishop. They too serve a purpose to taunt and test the same as during those forty days and forty nights.
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