Marital rape became illegal in every U.S. state by July 1, 1993, when North Carolina became the last state to repeal its spousal exemption from rape prosecution. The process started in 1975, when South Dakota became the first state to criminalize it, and took nearly two decades to reach all 50 states. Even then, the work was not finished: many states kept weaker rules for assaults between spouses, and some of those gaps have only been closed in the last few years.
The First State to Act: South Dakota, 1975
South Dakota moved first. In 1975, its legislature passed Senate Bill 165 and struck the phrase “not the wife of the perpetrator” from the state’s rape statute, extending the law’s protection to married women for the first time.1South Dakota Legislature. South Dakota Codified Laws 22-22-1 – Rape–Degrees–Penalty–Statute of Limitations The change was quiet at the national level, but it broke a pattern that American penal codes had carried for generations.
Other states followed, unevenly. Some repealed the exemption outright. Others criminalized spousal rape only when the couple had filed for divorce or was living apart, creating a lesser version of the crime for married victims still at home. By 1985, twenty states treated it as a crime for a husband to rape his wife. The pace picked up through the late 1980s as women’s rights organizations, including the National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape, worked directly with state legislators.
The Last State to Act: North Carolina, 1993
By early 1993, only Oklahoma and North Carolina still had no law prohibiting spousal rape. Oklahoma acted first that year. North Carolina followed on July 1, 1993, when the state Senate voted 44-3 to end the husband’s immunity from prosecution. With that vote, no American jurisdiction officially recognized marriage as a defense to a rape charge.
The final wave of reforms often meant dropping conditions that earlier statutes had imposed. States that had criminalized spousal rape only during separation or divorce proceedings had, in practice, required victims to leave the home before the law would reach their attacker. Full criminalization removed those strings.
Why “Illegal in All 50 States” Overstates the 1993 Milestone
The headline date is accurate but incomplete. What many states actually did in the years leading up to 1993 was criminalize spousal rape under narrower terms than non-spousal rape. The result was a patchwork of lesser protections that outlived the headline reform by decades.
The disparities took several forms:
- Higher proof requirements, such as a mandatory showing of physical force or threat of force when the assailant was a spouse.
- Shorter reporting deadlines, with at least one state giving married victims as little as 30 days to report.
- Reduced penalties, with spousal rape classified as a lesser offense than identical conduct between unmarried people.
- Narrower definitions that excluded certain conduct, such as cases involving drugs or the victim’s incapacitation.
Reform of these residual rules has been slow. California did not eliminate the legal distinction between “spousal rape” and “rape” in its penal code until 2021. Maryland repealed its spousal defense for rape and sexual offenses effective October 2023.2Maryland General Assembly. SB0129 – Criminal Law – Sexual Crimes – Repeal of Spousal Defense Ohio’s House passed a bill to close a loophole that protected spouses from prosecution when no threat of force was present, though the measure faced further legislative hurdles.3Ohio House of Representatives. Ohio House Passes Bill to Close Loophole in Cases of Sexual Assault and Rape Decades after 1993, equalizing spousal and non-spousal sexual assault law is still unfinished in some places.
What Was Being Repealed
The rule the states spent two decades dismantling came from Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of England in 1671. In a treatise published after his death in 1736, Hale wrote that a husband “cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.”4Virginia General Assembly. HD33 – Marital Rape He cited no authority. No statute established the rule and no court had ruled on it, yet American courts and legislatures absorbed it as settled common law.
State penal codes then wrote the exemption into their text. Rape statutes typically defined the crime as forced sexual intercourse with a woman “not the wife of the perpetrator.” The 1962 Model Penal Code used the same approach, defining rape as forced sexual intercourse “with a female not his wife.” The justifications legislators and judges repeated for the exemption were familiar: government should not interfere in private marital affairs, prosecution would invite false accusations by vengeful wives, and family stability outweighed individual claims of harm.
Two Court Decisions That Shaped the Shift
Oregon v. Rideout (1978)
Oregon’s 1978 prosecution of John Rideout was the first time an American husband faced rape charges while still living with his wife.5Marion County District Attorney. Man Sentenced for Sodomy and Rape Oregon had recently amended its law to allow the prosecution, and Rideout became the test case. He was acquitted, but the trial drew heavy national coverage and showed that reformed statutes could reach a courtroom, even where juries were not yet ready to convict.
People v. Liberta (1984)
The more consequential decision came from New York. In 1984, the New York Court of Appeals held the state’s marital exemption for rape and sodomy unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clauses of both the federal and state constitutions.6Cornell Law School. People v. Liberta The court found “no rational basis for distinguishing between marital rape and nonmarital rape” and said the exemption’s defenders relied on arguments “either based upon archaic notions about the consent and property rights incident to marriage or are simply unable to withstand even the slightest scrutiny.”7Justia. Liberta v. Kelly The reasoning gave advocates and judges in other states a constitutional framework they could carry into their own courts and legislatures.