The law said men had an implied and irrevocable consent to sexual intercourse through the contract of marriage and were allowed to obtain sex by force.

In a ruling out this week, the High Court says the law cannot stand and declared that the notion that wives were subservient to the husband "must be confined to the graves".

The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions submitted the case to the High Court, arguing that the law was dehumanising, unacceptable and contrary to the country's commitment to the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Violence Against Women which was ratified by the Solomon Island Government in May 2002.