Two French MPs have introduced earlier than parliament a invoice geared toward ending the idea of ‘marital responsibility’ – the concept married {couples} are obliged to have intercourse with one another.
The ‘devoir conjugal’ is an archaic authorized idea involving the responsibility to have sexual relations with one’s partner.
It doesn’t seem within the French Civil Code, however it’s written that “spouses mutually commit themselves to a shared life,” which could be interpreted as a shared mattress.
The bipartisan invoice – introduced by centrist and Green MPs – “goals to make clear the Civil Code and reiterate that consent is an important situation for any sexual act, together with inside marriage,” based on an announcement.
The textual content thus proposes specifying within the Civil Code that every partner “respects the consent of the opposite” and that “divorce on the grounds of fault can’t be primarily based on the absence or refusal of sexual relations”.
This invoice “units a transparent boundary – in marriage, as in any relationship, the whole lot begins with consent,” defined its co-author, Paul Christophe of the centrist Horizons celebration, who hopes it is going to be examined as early because the week of January nineteenth.
“We have allowed the thought of ‘marital responsibility’ to persist, which has legitimised unfair and deeply abusive choices,” added Green MP Marie-Charlotte Garin, co-author of the textual content that goals to appropriate “a authorized absurdity and a human injustice.”
This initiative comes nearly a yr after France was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on this concern. In January 2025, the Court dominated in favour of a French lady whose husband had been granted a divorce attributing unique fault to his spouse, on the grounds that she had refused to have sexual relations with him for a number of years.
In its ruling, the Court emphasised that “long-standing however constant case regulation” on marital responsibility was “nonetheless recurrently utilized by courts of first occasion and attraction.”
Following this case, the far left La France Insoumise additionally submitted a invoice to the National Assembly in March geared toward ending marital obligations in French regulation.
