NO, actually people COULD do that until 1978 in all 50 states. The concept of marital rape was not in American law until Nebraska became the first state to make it a crime. This was the point I was getting across, (which obviously, someone took the wrong way). Marriage was a license to rape in this country. A woman didn't have a legal right to refuse her husband sex.
This is one of the ways marriage changed legally. I also cited no-fault divorce and the end to miscegenation laws... We redefined marriage. ANd we redefined it again when we said gay people can do it.
Outlawing marital rape did not redefined the institution of marriage, it defined the rights within.
If marriage was "license to rape", why would women marry at all?