Marital Rape and Patriarchal Legality in Indonesia: A Feminist and Pluralist Legal Critique
Keywords:
marital rape, patriarchal legality, feminist legal theory, legal pluralism, gender-based violenceAbstract
Marital rape remains obscured in Indonesia due to entrenched patriarchal values legitimized by religious, customary, and legal systems. Although recent laws such as the 2022 Sexual Violence Law and the 2023 Penal Code recognize sexual violence within marriage, their implementation faces resistance from cultural norms and fragmented legal authority. This study adopts a normative legal method with socio-legal and philosophical approaches to examine how marital rape is constructed, denied, or ignored across state, Islamic, and adat law. Drawing on statutory texts and institutional reports, the findings reveal that patriarchal legality silences victims, normalizes coercive sexual relations, and impedes gender-sensitive legal enforcement. The article proposes a transformative legal framework integrating feminist legal theory and legal pluralism to reorient marital relations toward consent and bodily autonomy. It contributes a contextual critique from the Global South, offering insight into how plural legal systems must be reimagined to achieve substantive justice for women.
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