BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon on Wednesday repealed a law that allowed rapists to evade punishment by marrying their accusers, the latest in a string of countries in the region to reverse such provisions under pressure from Arab women’s groups.

A handful of countries — including several in the Arab world as well as the Philippines, a majority Catholic country — have allowed men accused or convicted of rape to be exonerated if they marry their victims. Women’s groups have agitated for years for the laws to be repealed, saying they further victimize survivors. And one by one, the laws are falling.

Women’s rights advocates say that the law’s repeal in a vote by Lebanon’s 128-member Parliament is only the beginning of changing attitudes in patriarchal societies, where a family’s honor is linked to a woman’s chastity.

“It’s the first step to changing the mind-set and traditions,” said Ghida Anani, the founder and director of Abaad, a women’s rights group in Lebanon. “For us it’s the start. Now the awareness and behavioral campaign will start to make women aware that it’s no longer an option: He cannot escape punishment.”