Marital rape which were early to criminalize marital rape include the Soviet Union (1922), Poland (1932), Czechoslovakia (1950), some other members of the Communist Bloc, Sweden (1965), and Norway (1971). Slovenia, then a republic within federal Yugoslavia, criminalized marital rape in 1977. The Israeli Supreme Court affirmed that marital rape is a crime in a 1980 decision, citing law based on the Talmud (at least 6th century). Criminalization in Australia began with the state of New South Wales in 1981, followed by all other states from 1985 to 1992. Several formerly British-ruled countries followed suit: Canada (1983), New Zealand (1985), and Ireland
Marital rape (United States law) should not be viewed as a license for a husband to forcibly rape his wife with impunity. A married woman has the same right to control her own body as does an unmarried woman". Similarly, in Alabama, the marital exemptions from the sodomy law ("Williams v. State" (1986)) and from the rape law ("Merton v. State" (1986)) were found unconstitutional. By 1993, all states had withdrawn the marital rape exemptions, the last states to do so being Oklahoma and North Carolina (both in 1993) or the exemption had been declared judicially to be unconstitutional. Although marital rape exemptions had been