OSLO — She ran for her life.

Her husband had raped her again that night, this time more violently than ever in their 15-year marriage. He forced himself on her repeatedly, he choked her and threatened to kill her.

When she fled in the early hours of March 23, 2008 — down the stairwell, through the courtyard, into the street and up to a taxi — he caught up before the driver could pull away. She ran on, finally reaching a police station.

“You have to be ready to leave behind your entire life, your identity of a wife, of a normal family,” the woman, now 43, said in an interview. “You have to be ready to call the man you once loved a rapist.

“I just couldn’t do it before. But that night I knew, if I didn’t leave him, I would die.”

Norway vies with its Nordic neighbors for the title of most gender-egalitarian country in the world. Yet gender equality still seems to stop at the bedroom door, and even here, women who recounted their experiences declined to be identified, fearful still of retribution.