Abstract
Spousal immunity, a husband’s exemption to the legal consequences of rape, was an English legal import that was comprehensively protected in the patriarchal colonial context of New Zealand. Until 1985 New Zealand’s legal system played a crucial role in legitimising marital rape. Spousal immunity was ended in New Zealand through the Rape Law Reform Bill No.2 (1985). Repeal of spousal immunity was supported by research on sexual violence and a wide spectrum of the New Zealand public. After decades of legitimation for marital rape, parliamentary consensus shifted to agree that the principle was both illogical and wrong. By reforming rape laws politicians were not leading change, they were responding to change. This thesis argues that the criminalisation of marital rape in New Zealand was the result of feminist activism. Feminist initiatives included a critique of the existing marital structure, widening the definition of rape, and the establishment of feminist service organisations. The re-examination of spousal immunity which led to its repeal should be understood within the wider feminist concern for sexual violence rather than as an isolated campaign in its own right. Excerpts from public submissions to the Rape Law Reform process, feminist and government archives support this argument. To date, the limited research on marital rape in New Zealand has allowed the repeal of spousal immunity to be misunderstood as the inevitable modernisation of rape law from within the legal system. This thesis identifies social change, led by feminists, as preceding and prompting legal change. By centring the crucial role of feminist activists in the criminalisation of marital rape the relationship between feminism and the legal system can be more clearly understood.