OLDER Bahamian men are less inclined than younger people to believe in the existence of marital rape - and also less likely to believe that it should be outlawed.

Despite this, according to a study in the International Journal of Bahamian Studies which saw 2,845 people interviewed in the Spring of this year, overall there was support — over 50 percent — for outlawing spousal rape.

Other findings from the study show that 15 percent of ever married women were raped; 14 percent had consented to unwanted sexual intercourse with their partners, and those who consented to unwanted intercourse were 11.1 percent more likely to have also been raped when compared to those who had not consented to unwanted sex.

“A Preliminary Study on Unwanted Sexual Intercourse within Long-term Relationships in The Bahamas” was presented at the University of The Bahamas yesterday and gave further insight into how spousal sexual abuse is perceived among certain demographics.

The Tribune had previously reported early findings from this report which found that one in 12, or an estimated 4,000 married women, have been raped by their husbands.

The study suggested that around 6,000 wives claimed being victims of sexual abuse. This would be any sexual activity that occurs without consent and refers to a sexual assault or sexual violence, including unwanted sexual touching, forced oral sex, and rape, among other sexual acts.

Yesterday, William Fielding, adjunct faculty member of University of The Bahamas, said the study looked particularly at relationships that lasted for one year or more.

“Relationships aren’t static. You have relationships that look like marriage even though they haven’t actually signed on the dotted line and what we’re trying to do in this piece of research is avoid the casual relationships and any possibility of date rape,” he said.

He also said: “The group of people who are the least likely to agree that marital rape can occur and least likely to feel that marital rape should be outlawed is this male group aged 55 and over and the importance of this group, of course, is its going to encapsulate the group of males, that group who have the power to change the law, I won’t say anything more about that and, of course, when we look outside of the state administration the other people that are vocal on this issue on the religious side they tend to males of the older age group.

“So when we are hearing these voices that are casting doubt upon marital rape in fact these are the voices that are very much typical from what we would find from the data.

“What is interesting is that in the other age groups, male and female, there is far more support for outlawing marital rape. So, overall the data does support that there is a clear support to outlaw marital rape and a clear acknowledgement that rape can occur within marriage however you want to call it, which suggests that even if the law is not changed immediately as those younger people age and they’re replaced by other people who will be wanting to think in a similar way that change is going to occur later rather than sooner.”

Closer analysis of the findings show that 63.5 percent of men in the 18 to 24 age group and 72.1 percent of women agreed that a husband can rape his wife.

However in the 55 and over age group, this fell to 45.1 percent, while 61.2 percent of women in the same age group believe this.

While most females — 69 percent — had not been hit by their long-term partner, were not fearful of their partner and had not had sex with their partner against their will, four percent of females had suffered from all of these concerning issues.

“While these percentages may not seem large, they potentially indicate that based upon the 2010 census, around 7,300 of women may fall into this group. Further, this figure represents a relatively large percentage of those who suffer just one of these issues, except the hit by partner group, and demonstrates the co-occurrence of these matters in the lives of women who have experienced long-term relationships,” the report noted. “We can also note that when women are subject to physical violence, they have almost a 50 percent chance of being subject to other behaviours of concern.”

The report said the results from this study are in broad agreement with the estimates for marital rape reported from the USA.

“We should note that this study gives estimates of the lifetime experience of rape within long-term relationships; it does not attempt to estimate the occurrence of rape of women only within marriage. However, our estimate of between about 15-30 percent of women being victims of rape in their long-term relationships demonstrates that women need protection from harm even within stable relationships.”