Many other types of assault can happen in a marriage, and things like physical and emotional abuse are reported every day. So, you may be wondering if sexual assault or rape allegations can also come from one spouse, targeting the other.
Under current Canadian laws, this absolutely can happen. Someone can be assaulted by a partner, even if the two are married and have voluntarily engaged in similar activities many times.
However, this law may not be quite as current as you'd expect; the current laws were only passed in 1983. Before that, sexual assault could not happen between two married people, at least in the eyes of the law.
This did not mean that a spouse who had been assaulted had no options, but sexual assault itself could not be the charge. If a woman was assaulted by her husband, for example, she could only bring charges of common assault, indecent assault, or assault causing bodily harm. She would then have to prove that these things had happened, and no conviction could be given if the sexual component to the attack was the only one that existed.
When the changes were made in 1983, the Criminal Code was altered so that it no longer referred to "rape." Instead, a situation that would previously have been described as rape was said to be a sexual assault. This was done, according to lawmakers, to try to fight against some of the assumptions about what constituted this type of attack.
Those who have been accused of sexual assault, within a marriage or otherwise, have a right to a fair trial.
Source: The Globe and Mail, "Canadian law only changed 26 years ago," Caroline Alphonso and Marjan Farahbaksh, accessed April 28, 2016
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