By the end of 1984, 17 other states had at least partially stricken the marital exemption prior to Judge Wachtler’s ruling, but his would be the landmark case from which most subsequent state and federal cases later took their cue. The headline in the New York Times read, “New York Joins 17 States That Deny Wives Are Property; Rape in Marriage Is No Longer Within the Law.” Can you imagine? In 1984, there were only 18 American states that denied wives were the sexual property of their husbands? It took until July 5, 1993 for marital rape to be recognized and criminalized in all 50 states.
It’s worth noting that it took a spectacularly violent, dehumanizing, and sadistic act of rape and sodomy—in front of a young child—to get the Court to think differently about a man’s “right” to extract sex from his wife. Moreover, the victim in this case was already separated from her husband at the time, and had an Order of Protection against him. Mrs. Denise Liberta had proven in the eyes of the law already that Mr. Mario Liberta was a violent, dangerous man, and she had established her clear and fixed intent to leave him. The problem was that she was not technically divorced yet.
These circumstances undoubtedly made it easier for the judge to see the unfairness of her situation, and the criminality of her husband. I shudder to think what the outcome of the case would have been had she not already filed an Order of Protection and had her husband vacate the marital residence. Would anyone have believed she didn’t consent? Would anyone have cared if there hadn’t been an unmistakeable paper trail leading up to the violent sexual assault, to indicate that this man’s attentions were not just unwanted, but actually feared? What would happen if the wife didn’t clearly or enthusiastically consent, but also didn’t say no? What would happen if a wife let her husband enact abusive sexual acts upon her, and then tried to stop him, once he had begun? What would happen if a woman who had allowed her husband to perform sadomasochistic sex acts on her in the past decided she didn’t want to have sex with him one particular time? Was that rape? These were questions that Americans were left to ponder in the mid 1980s and beyond.