Marital rape that is no crime, wives who owe their husbands availability on demand: wherever these texts become law, a woman's consent ends at the wedding. In Iraq, the law still ignores marital rape and lets husbands "discipline" their wives. The texts make the rules plain. Quran 2:223 calls wives a field and tells husbands to "approach your tilth when or how ye will". If a wife refuses her husband's call to bed, the angels curse her until morning (Bukhari 3237, Muslim 1436), and the One in heaven stays angry with her until her husband is satisfied (Muslim 1436). She must come even if she is at the oven (Tirmidhi 1160).
Since 2025, Iraqi couples can trade the civil family law for a Shia religious code. It sets marriage at puberty, accepts weddings with no witness and no register, hands children to their fathers at seven, and lets a woman divorce only if she is abandoned, unpaid or repeatedly beaten. Iraqi women fought to make the reform less terrible. Six months later, parliament made it worse.
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