The couple had been together for some three decades before they divorced. She blamed his work for taking a toll on their marriage. But in 2019, a French court ruled that she was solely to blame for the split, after she refused to have sex with him.
Europe’s top human rights court on Thursday condemned that ruling, saying that the French court’s decision had violated the woman’s right to private life and autonomy, which included her sexual life. The decision was seen as a milestone by women’s rights activists who have long raised concerns about France’s marital laws.
The 2019 decision by the Versailles Court of Appeals said that the woman, identified only as H.W. in court documents, was at fault in the divorce after stopping “intimate relations” with her husband. Her refusal for years to be intimate with her husband, that court said, was a “serious and repeated violation” of her marital duties.
But the European Court of Human Rights, saying that governments had an obligation to combat domestic and sexual violence, ruled on Thursday that “the very existence of such a marital obligation is contrary both to sexual freedom and to the right to control one’s body.”
It added: “The court cannot accept, as the government suggests, that consent to marriage implies consent to future sexual relations.”
It was a symbolic victory for the woman, who had argued that she should not have been found at fault in the divorce. Women’s rights groups called the decision a fundamental step to address sexual violence and other forms of abuse against women in relationships.
“I hope this decision will mark a turning point in the fight for women’s rights in France,” H.W. said in a statement through her lawyer, Delphine Zoughebi. “This victory is for all women who, like me, find themselves confronted with aberrant and unjust judicial decisions that call into question their bodily integrity and their right to privacy.”
H.W. and J.C., as her husband was named in documents, who lived together outside Paris, married in 1984 and had four children together, the judgment said. The woman initiated divorce proceedings in 2012, claiming that her husband’s focus on his career had affected their family life, and that he had been “irritable, violent and hurtful.”
Her husband had argued in French court that she was to blame because she had breached her marital duties by refusing sexual intimacy, and had also slandered him with her accusations.
The woman testified that she had refused to have sex because of health problems, including a serious accident and a slipped disk. The French court found in his favor.
The French government, defending itself at the European court, had argued that the question of whether marital duty was breached was a matter for domestic courts, and pointed out that French law punished sexual assault between spouses. A spokeswoman for Diego Colas, an official who represented the French government in court, declined to comment but referred to a brief response on Thursday from Gérald Darmanin, France’s justice minister.
“Obviously we will go in the direction of history and we will adapt our law,” Mr. Darmanin told reporters. He said he would encourage lawmakers to discuss the matter.
Both parties have three months to refer the case to the European court’s Grand Chamber, which can consider the case for a final judgment. Once final, a committee of government representatives for the court’s member states supervise its enforcement. The European court does not have an enforcement mechanism, but its rulings can prompt countries to re-examine their laws.
Conversations around mutual consent, rape culture and sexual violence have swept France in recent months, driven by the harrowing case in which 51 men were convicted of sexually violating Gisèle Pelicot. Mrs. Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, admitted to drugging and raping her for almost a decade, and inviting dozens of strangers to join him.
Lilia Mhissen, another lawyer representing H.W., said the ruling should stop French courts from interpreting the law in a way that would force women to have sex with their partners. She called it “a major development for women’s right to control their own bodies, including within marriage.”
The Women’s Foundation, a French women’s rights group, said that the ruling had brought France “face to face with its responsibilities.” It called on the government to review its judicial practices, adding that feminist groups had warned that the notion of “marital duty” was a form of control and sexual violence.
“Marriage cannot and must never be equated with sexual servitude,” the group said.
