In 2003, our Family Court granted a divorce to a husband on the ground that his marriage had broken down because his wife had acted unreasonably by refusing to have sex with him.

 

In 2005, three wives aired their separate tales of their husband’s infidelity in letters to the Straits Times in Singapore. All three wondered in print whether they had neglected their husbands in bed and whether their neglect led their husbands to stray. They were quickly answered by feminists who decried the idea that women should be blamed for men’s infidelity.

Three years ago, a husband in India set his wife on fire because his wife refused to have sex with him. The newspaper hinted that the husband’s mother approved of the punishment.

This year, Afghanistan made it to our headlines for imposing a law (Article 132) that gave husbands the right to sex every fourth night and allowed husbands to starve their less sexually co-operative wives.

And just two months ago, Singaporeans are grappling with the question whether the law should punish rape between husband and wives. No one seems to ask this question : why did wives marry their husbands if they were not willing sex partners in the first place?

There seems to be a crisis looming in the matrimonial bedroom. Why are wives everywhere turning away from sex? The science did not seem very difficult to understand :

(a) A 2002 British Broadcasting Corporation report showed that UK scientists concluded that some women had no Skene glands and low levels of a protein called PDE5 and concluded that such women were incapable of achieving orgasm;

(b) A 2005 Straits Times report showed that KK Hopsital survey found that one in four women experienced pain during sex;

(c) A 2005 professor from the London St Thomas Hospital surveyed 4,000 odd twins and concluded that more than 20% of women were born without the ability to experience orgasm; and

(d) In 2009, the Straits Times reported that scientists have identified a chemical (oxytoxin) that promoted female bonding (eg.during female gossip), and another (vasopressin) that promoted male attachment to his female partner during orgasm.

It’s in the genes. Some women don’t get it!

No wonder that there are cheeky anecdotal reports every now and then that women preferred shopping (or chocolate ) to sex. Or preferred to watch Sex and the City late at night rather than to cosy up with the real McCoy. And we are not talking about a one to one exchange for one night of sex. The Straits Times reported in 2007 that a New York survey found that most women would give up 15 months of sex for a new wardrobe of clothes! We did not need a University researcher to tell us that many women did not enjoy sex all that much. The London University report merely gave us a number to pin on the anecdotes – that number is mind boggling : one in five women! That’s right, one in five women in your work place, or on your dinner table… just don’t get it.

Given that monogamy laws apply in the UK and US, that meant that one in five men were married to women who were incapable of achieving orgasm. The quintessential bedroom joke is the wife who mumbles apologetically, “Honey, I’m having a headache.” Yes! A headache for wives to think up excuses to avoid conjugal relations. A headache for their husbands to run the heart wrenching gamut from : “Am I not doing it right?” to “Is she seeing someone else?” to “Maybe I should be meeting more women”.

In centuries past, religion persuaded housewives to submit to their husband’s desires. But such persuasions do not cut it anymore for modern women corporate raiders. Women now want fulfillment. And yes – that new wardrobe. Sex with husbands rank very low down on their list of priorities. Women are not keeping their side of the religious bargain anymore. Can monogamy laws still survive in the face of such changes in women’s values.

The Women’s Charter was enacted in 1961 to protect women. It recognized the importance of sex within a marriage by rendering voidable a marriage that was not consummated by sex. Yet it imposed no duty on spouses to have sex with each other. It appeared that a spouse needed only to have sex once for the monogamy provision to kick in. Thereafter, if the wife refused to have sex with her husband, she might be acting unreasonably. But consequent upon her refusal, if the husband had sex with another woman, he would be committing adultery! The Marital Bed had morphed into Monastic Prison.

In the last decade or so, there are only two reported cases where the Singapore Court granted divorce on the ground that the wife was unreasonable in refusing to have sex with her husband. In contrast, there are countless divorces granted to wives on the ground that the husband committed adultery. Yet, if the scientists are right, if one out of four to five women were incapable of orgasm, many of those adulterous husbands must have had wives who declined to have sex. Should the law make it so easy for wives who failed to keep their side of the marriage bargain to divorce their husbands? The law recognizes constructive desertion (to wives who deserted their husbands because they have been driven out by their husbands). Husbands cannot rely on desertion to file for divorce if the husband is guilty of constructive desertion. Similarly, the law should recognize constructive adultery (to husbands driven to adultery by wives who refused them sex). And wives should not be allowed to rely on adultery to file for divorce if the wives are guilty of constructive adultery.

The Women’s Charter was affirmative action from a past century when women were largely uneducated and economically dependent upon their husbands. Fast forward half a century and today’s women are well educated (there are more women undergraduates than men) and financially independent (making slow and steady progress on the corporate ladder and government leadership positions). By clinging on to this legislation, the Women’s Charter is facilitating the break up of marriages. According to the Department of Statistics, approx. 65% of divorce were initiated by women. It goes against the grain of Singapore’s pro-family policies for the Women’s Charter to facilitate such easy divorces.

What Singapore needs is a Family Charter: one that sets out the duties of not just husbands, but the duties of wives, one that balances the interests of both husbands and wives, one that persuades more women that the feminists were wrong : women can be blamed for failing to keep their side of the marriage bargain.