A milestone in the liberation of women goes before the National Assembly today

Members of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) will decide today whether to eradicate "marital rape" from the law books - after more than half a century of being legitimised.

Amendments to the rape law will mark another historic page in the struggle by Thai women for their right to refuse sex to be legally recognised. It's been a long struggle, one that has its roots in a fight for rights 142 years ago during the reign of King Mongkut.

Two women - Amdaeng Maun and Amdaeng Chan, who lived during the reign of King Mongkut (King Rama IV) - won battles against an old law that saw women as a possession of their parents and husbands.

Amdaeng Maun filed a petition to King Mongkut, accusing her parents of forcing her to marry a man she didn't want to, while Amdaeng Chan petitioned the King that her husband sold her to be a slave without her consent.

Amdaeng Maun was 21 years old when her parents wanted her to marry Nai Phu. When she refused, her parents beat her and allowed Nai Phu to forcibly take her to his house. But Amdaeng Maun resisted and would not accept being forced to live with Nai Phu. She escaped from his house and returned to her parents, but they beat her and allowed Nai Phu to drag her back to his house again. Amdaneg Maun later escaped and went to live with Nai Rid, the man she loved, and then filed her petition to the King.

Learning of the plight of the two women, King Mongkut made an historic judgement that released Thai women from the constrict of prevailing social values and the old law against women's rights.

The King announced that Amdaeng Maun had the right to choose her husband, and Amdaeng Chan had the right over her body and her husband couldn't sell her without her consent.

A provision in the husband-wife law used from Ayutthaya to the early Rattanakosin period allowed a husband to "whip" his wife and gave husbands the right to give away or sell his wife to pay debts.

But King Mongkut criticised as unjust the law that saw a wife as her husband's possession and suggested in 1967 that it be amended.

"This law, once examined, is as if women are like water buffaloes while men are human, which is unjust and should be abolished," the King stated. Husbands have not been allowed to sell their wives without their consent ever since.

A century on, and Thai women are fighting another odious battle over the right to their bodies. Marital rape has not been treated as a criminal offence for more than 50 years.

One person who is desperate to see the law changed is Kanya Sripan, who alleges she has been the victim of "marital rape" for years. "When I tell the police that I have been raped by my husband they ask me to show my divorce paper," Kanya said.

But her "abusive" husband refuses to allow a divorce. He allegedly forces her to have sex with him, saying he has the right to do so - because he is her husband.

The rape law doesn't protect wives from being raped by their husbands and that has led to additional problems for women in the form of abortions, HIV infection and mental illness.

Section 276 states: Whoever has sexual intercourse with a woman, who is not his wife, against her will, by threatening by any means whatsoever, by doing any act of violence, by taking advantage of the woman being in the condition of inability to resist, or by causing the woman to mistake him for the other person, shall be punished with imprisonment of four to twenty years and a fine of Bt8,000 to Bt40,000.

The women's movement has fought for several decades to delete the words "who is not his wife" from section 276 of the Penal Code, but they have met a brick wall in Parliament.

Thailand acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985, but many people, especially those responsible for law amendments, still believe it is a wife's duty to serve her husband's sexual needs even without her consent.

"We aren't saying that most husbands are bad. We are saying that bad husbands must be punished," says Anjana Suvarnananda, a key member of the Network to Stop Sexual Violence, which is fighting to change the rape law.

"Sexual intercourse should be a happy thing for both sides, not just one person threatening the other."