PARIS (AP) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered a significant ruling on Thursday in favor of a French woman who had ceased to have sexual relations with her husband, asserting that she should not be held at fault in the context of their divorce due to her choice. This case highlighted important issues surrounding consent, marital duties, and individual rights within a marriage.
The case stems from a fault-based divorce proceeding that occurred in France. In 2019, a French court of appeal ruled that the woman’s refusal to engage in sexual activity constituted a breach of her marital obligations. Consequently, the court granted the divorce on the grounds that her actions were detrimental, placing the blame solely on her. This decision led to an appeal to the ECHR, questioning the legitimacy of the French court’s judgment.
The ECHR ultimately ruled against the French court, stating that the ruling had violated the woman's right to respect for her private and family life. In its decision, the court emphasized that the fundamental principle of marital duties could not override an individual’s right to sexual freedom and bodily autonomy. The ECHR articulated that equating one’s refusal of sexual relations with a breach of marital duty constituted an unacceptable interference in the woman’s private life.
The applicant, known as H.W., is a French national born in 1955. She initiated divorce proceedings against her husband, indicating that he had prioritized his career over their family life and had displayed bad-tempered, violent, and abusive behavior throughout their marriage. The couple shared four children, and H.W. alleged that her husband’s actions had deeply affected their family dynamics.
The husband, however, countered her allegations and argued that the divorce should be attributed solely to H.W.’s faults. He claimed that she had failed to meet her marital duties over several years and had violated the mutual respect that should exist between spouses by making defamatory allegations against him. This contentious back-and-forth ultimately led the Court of Appeal of Versailles to grant the divorce but did so exclusively attributing fault to H.W.
Once the ruling was made, H.W. took her case to the ECHR in 2021, challenging the basis on which her divorce was granted. The ECHR underscored that consent to marriage does not equate to a perpetual consent to engage in sexual relations. Their statement indicated that reading marriage as an automatic commitment to sexual relations undermined the severity of the issue of marital rape and associated consent. The court asserted that genuine consent must be based on a free and voluntary willingness to engage in sexual relations at any specific moment.
This ruling arrives in the context of increased dialogue about consent laws in France, particularly a month after a high-profile case involving the conviction of 51 men in a drugging-and-rape trial that ignited widespread discussions regarding the importance of delineating consent in French law concerning sexual offenses. The ECHR's decision reinforces the ongoing shift towards recognizing individual autonomy within relationships and the necessity of clear, affirmative consent.
