TRENTON — Say a man and woman want to get married in New Jersey. They’ll have to wait at least 72 hours. Unless, that is, the man was arrested for "bastardy, rape, fornication or of having had carnal knowledge of an unmarried female, and the accused person consents to marry such female." In that case, officials can waive the...
Sen. Loretta Weinberg (left) and Sen. Jennifer Beck have introduced a bill to strike sexist language out of laws dating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.TRENTON — Say a man and woman want to get married in New Jersey. They’ll have to wait at least 72 hours.
Unless, that is, the man was arrested for "bastardy, rape, fornication or of having had carnal knowledge of an unmarried female, and the accused person consents to marry such female."
In that case, officials can waive the waiting period so they can get married immediately.
It’s an actual state law, dating to the early 1900s, that’s still on the books. But state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) hopes it won’t be for much longer.
"So in other words, he can rape her and if he decides he’ll marry her, then everything’s fine?" she said. "Why would they even say that unless it seems to indicate that if they immediately get married everything would be OK?"
Times change, but the language of the law is sometimes slow to catch up. So after noticing the antiquated and at times demeaning references to women still contained in laws that date to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Weinberg and state Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) recently introduced a bill (S2665) striking such language from the books.
Another law targeted in the bill says a woman forfeits her property rights to her husband if she’s been "ravished, consent to the ravisher" — unless the husband forgives her and allows her to live with him. "That almost sounds like a paragraph out of Jane Eyre," said Weinberg.
Other laws the bill would repeal were well-intentioned but no longer relevant. The Married Women’s Property Acts, enacted in the 19th century, gave married women legal and property rights they had previously been denied. But they are no longer needed, since the state constitution and anti-discrimination laws guarantee equal protection.
"Having these antiquated laws on the books is not a positive. We should update them to reflect current society," said Beck.
Weinberg discovered the property acts through a 2007 report by the New Jersey Law Revision Commission, which reviews state laws and suggests revisions to the Legislature.
There are a lot of silly laws in New Jersey that go unenforced. For example, county jails aren’t supposed to spend more than 50 cents a day to feed prisoners — a 1924 law that, if enforced today, would violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
But other outdated laws, unchecked, have had the potential to prove harmful.
"Some of these laws sound silly and antiquated, but they can lead to real problems if they’re not solved," said Vito Gagliardi, chairman of the commission.
For example, in 1992, state authorities were counting on a cooperative Irene Seale to testify against her husband, Arthur, for the kidnapping and murder of Exxon executive Sidney Reso. But prosecutors soon realized Arthur Seale would have been able to prevent his wife from testifying, even though she wanted to, under the state’s outdated spousal privilege law. Seale wound up pleading guilty, making the issue moot, but lawmakers quickly realized the problem and changed the law.
Now, while spouses can’t be forced to testify against each other, one can’t stop the other from taking the stand. While signing the bill, Gov. Jim Florio said it was based on a 19th century legal concept that women were "property" of their husbands.
Weinberg and Beck’s bill hasn’t advanced yet, but Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) said he would have no problem putting it up for a vote in his committee.
"It sounds like these laws are completely outdated, not generally enforced, and if we need to repeal them, I’m certainly open-minded to that," he said.