Allow me to say something in my defence especially when some of your readers like Reverend Frank Gusset wonder if I carry a club and inhabit a cave or come from a dysfunctional family. I certainly would like to think not.

It should not be confused that those of us who argue against criminalisation of marital rape because of the fact that it will violate the precepts of the marriage institution are necessarily chauvinistic apologists for forced and non-consensual marital sex. It is not necessarily the case.

Confusion abounds when one debates this issue without grasping the very concept of marriage and family institution as it relates to human sexuality, and the seamless strands of precepts that constitute and hold the institution together.

Sex is basic human instinct, which humans pursue, as well as, at the same time, persecute. For unless it is gratified, the human species will not propagate and replenish but if it were gratified unrestrained, we would destroy ourselves in chaos.

Marriage and the family institution is that piece of social engineering devised to meet these conflicting imperatives - to regulate the sex instinct, to secure opportunities for its gratification and yet establish restraint for accountability and responsibility at the same time.

Marriage, especially a monogamous marriage, is then constructed out of an amalgam of the following inter-linking precepts.

The first precept is sexual exclusivity, which prohibits extramarital sex and adultery with outsiders. This is important not only because it accommodates human sexual jealousy, but also in that the fidelity of the wife assures the husband that he is not made a cuckold of to invest his parental resources on some other men's offspring.

The fidelity of the husband assures the wife that his resources of time and money will be invested solely on her and her children and not diluted over other women. It also assures a degree of stability and permanence around which one's life and future may be structured.

Also it establishes territoriality, demarcating rights and obligations to fend off outside encroachments. For example, an innocent spouse may not only divorce the straying partner but also claim compensation against the abettor of adultery.

Upon demise of the unfaithful spouse, the legal spouse and his/her children are accorded the property of the deceased - not the 'other family'.

If for the reasons above, a spouse is prohibited from seeking and obtaining sexual gratification from persons outside the union, it stands to reason that he or she will then have to draw exclusively on the other spouse to meet his or her sexual needs, which is facilitated in law by:

• the other spouse not being permitted to engage in sex with others or else will be guilty of adultery;

For this reason, the second precept in marriage is constructed so that sex is both a conjugal right , and a concomitant obligation under marital law.

The third precept arising from the first and the second is that the consent to have exclusive sex with one spouse is therefore implied. If the law implies a spouse's blanket consent to have sex with the other, then that consent cannot be withdrawn based on inclination or disinclination for marital rape to be made an offence in law.

One cannot call something a right in law when it cannot be asserted or is something of an obligation that need not be discharged.

The fourth precept is familial trust, which has to be preserved. This is why no spouse is compellable to give evidence against the other in a suit by third parties without the other's consent. To make marital rape an offence undermines that trust.

One cannot have one spouse securing help from children to prove marital rape against the other. The very possibility of that erodes that trust that must subsist between family members for marriage to be preserved.

Marriage then is a concept evolved from human experience and constructed in law upon these four interlocking precepts, like props reinforcing the other. You cannot take away the third precept of implied blanket consent and yet not undermine the remaining precepts and props.

The husband denied sex by reason of the threat of marital rape may threaten to proceed with adultery or nullifying the marriage on grounds of non-consummation. He will not share so freely the confidences, especially his financial affairs, with his wife if there were such a law.

When one opposes the legislation of marital rape, it is to preserve the integrity of marriage premised on the consistency of its precepts. It does not mean that one advocates at the same time using force on one's wife for sex. They are different issues.

Marriage is an institution that has evolved to regulate human sexuality. It is not perfect, but it is intended to work for the majority balancing all conflicting imperatives. Like any institution, there will be misfits who are the minority.

For example, marriage will not satisfy those whose testosterones are raging and to whom monogamous marriage is a bondage and hypocrisy, and who will only be satisfied by innumerable sexual liaisons outside it.

It is not intended for - but it does include - boorish husbands who do not understand 'give and take' and would forcibly 'rape' their wives repeatedly, with the wives putting up with such abuse because of economic circumstances.

When confronted by a husband whose sexual demands are incessant, the aggrieved wife could avail herself to the remedy of divorce based on harm to emotional and physical health. If violence is implicated, it suffices that wives can resort to the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act.

They can leave the matrimonial home, and if in such instance their husbands still persist in violating them, then the law should be changed to invoke marital rape - only for such exceptional cases of the wives having left the matrimonial home though not having obtained a divorce as yet.

On the basis of anecdotal experience, I believe the majority of Malaysian men respect their wives and do not use force; likewise, the majority of wives would, inclined or otherwise, accommodate their husbands' needs because sex is viewed as an expression of love and intimacy and depriving their men is a catalyst for them to look elsewhere and stray.

So this is not a major problem as painted by women groups so as to warrant a sea-change in concept of rape to include marital partners. To do so would inflict harm to the notional integrity of marriage and the family institution, which ultimately serves the interest of women and children.

If women groups genuinely want to be effective, they should stop blindly following western feminists and fight where it counts for the economic betterment of women so that they do not have to put up, for economic reasons, with abusive and emotionally marginalised men who get married to compensate for their inadequacies.

To an extent, I agree with Clarissa Lee that laws are imperfect tools to regulate human conduct, and that proper education and values are more effective.

But this too, she must weigh and accept the consequences of her suggestion which may not be what she intended. She suggests that there should be more educational campaigns, counselling and information booths to teach people the right and wrong reasons for marrying.

Let me assure her that when people study the pros and cons of marriage, formulate a grid on the advantages and disadvantages of a certain partner as compared to other available substitutes, and when they really know objectively the responsibilities of family and the discipline involved in reining in their libido, many will not marry.

When taking the 'plunge' and it is not called a plunge for nothing - emotion is more likely to triumph over logic, and libido over cold calculations. Which is why Plato called love as prelude to union, thea mania or a divine mania.

If you are too knowledgeable about it, you demystify the marriage institution to an extent that you will not partake in it and society's aims of regulating the sex instinct and propagating and protecting offspring will be somewhat compromised.

Secondly, in desiring to refine the concept of marriage, and in mooting why we ought to consider having a different kind of civil union for couples who do love each other and want to legalise their relationship (under the law), but do not wish to be 'forced' to propagate, would she support, in principle, gay marriages that fulfill every criteria of love and commitment without the need nor the capacity to create offspring?

The point of all this is to show that a seamless web of interconnected ideas weaves marriage together as we understand it (and abide by its rules) and that if you want to introduce new strands of thought like marital rape or as Clarissa says, marriage without contemplation of procreation, you must be prepared to accept the logical consequences of that change and where it will lead to.

It will lead to a change and fracture of the traditional nuclear family unit and the dislocation of innocent children, as western societies evince, when feminist women go overboard in their agenda.