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Igel

(35,191 posts)
9. No, it wasn't.
Sun Sep 1, 2019, 12:38 PM
Sep 2019

The privilege is usually--I don't know about New Mexico--held by the witness.

The wife, for example, couldn't bar the husband from testifying against her. But the state couldn't force the husband to testify against his wofe. It was a privilege that let the spouse say, "No, I won't testify against my partner." That might be because of economic interests, the interest in having two parents for the kids, out of affection, or simply because once on the stand all kinds of private things might be revealed that the partner doesn't want to have revealed. In other words, not so much self-incrimination as self-humiliation and airing one's dirty laundry in public.

That allowed for testimony. It didn't compel testimony.

Notice that my example must be somehow misogynistic in ways I don't see. The right was symmetrical, and neither spouse could be compelled to testify against the other. Even as many say, "We must stop compulsion," what I really see them saying is, "We must not compel things I like and approve of, but we must compel others to do things they might not want to do." We're all still petty authoritarians, but more principled in our self-interest. And more easily manipulated, too, I think. If the word "misogyny" wasn't in there, I think many would and move on.

What the right did do, sadly, was allow one partner to threaten the other to compel exercise of the privilege. In that I could see the exercise of misogyny, even if spousal abuse goes both ways. But that makes something that's corollary merely corollary.

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