Husband and Wife

The most unique aspects of the relationship between a husband and wife are the legal sanctions attached to their sexual relationship. A number of states will grant a divorce based on the ground that a husband or wife was denied sex by his or her spouse. Similarly, an individual is ordinarily able to obtain an ANNULMENT if his or her spouse is unable to engage in sexual relations. The right of the state to interfere with the marital sexual relationship is limited by the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

In the landmark case of GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 (1965), the Court held that state statutes cannot unreasonably intrude into the marital sexual relationship. In this case, Connecticut was not allowed to enforce a statute that made it a crime for a physician to counsel married people on BIRTH CONTROL. This was viewed as an unreasonable intrusion into the marital sexual relationship, since the sanctity of the marital relationship would be invaded if the statute were enforced. The Court emphasized the significance and constitutional considerations of privacy in marriage.

It was once thought that the degree of privacy to which a married couple is entitled could be restricted. Although some state statutes have used this reasoning to attempt to prohibit certain sex acts between a husband and wife, such as anal and oral sex, most courts have maintained that married couples have a constitutional privacy right over their marital sexual activities (Lovisi v. Zahradnick, 429 U.S. 977, 97 S. Ct. 485, 50 L. Ed. 2d 585 [1976] [mem]).

A husband and wife have the right to purchase and use birth control devices—although when an individual uses contraceptives or becomes sterilized contrary to his or her spouse's wishes, this might provide grounds for annulment or divorce.

ABORTION has been viewed as an additional restriction on the sexual rights of a husband and wife. A wife's right to choose abortion takes precedence over the husband-and-wife relation-ship. A husband may not preclude his wife from having a legal abortion, nor may he compel her to have one. The Supreme Court struck down statutory requirements that a husband must be notified of his wife's abortion, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1992).

At one time, a husband was allowed to have sexual relations with his wife with or without her consent, and for many years, courts supported a marital exception to laws against rape. Under current law, the fact that the accused party and the victim were husband and wife can no longer be used as a defense to criminal charges. Violent assaults on a spouse are illegal in all states. A savage rape attack by a husband on his wife might be subject to prosecution as an assault or, in some cases, as an attempted murder.