A French woman has won a ruling from Europe’s top human rights court, with a panel of seven judges unanimously saying she should not have been blamed in her divorce for not having sex with her husband.
The European Court of Human Rights judgment ruled that the woman — known as Ms. H.W. in court documents in keeping with European protocol — suffered a violation of Article 8 under the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to respect for family and private life.
The case centered on the divorce between the woman, a French national born in 1955 who lives in Le Chesnay, near Versailles, and her husband, known in court records as Mr. J.C.
In 2015, she petitioned to the Versailles High Court for divorce on the grounds of fault, alleging that her husband had prioritized his career over family life and been bad-tempered and insulting, according to an ECHR statement.
He counterclaimed, arguing that she had made slanderous accusations against him and “failed to fulfill her marital duties.”
The divorce was granted in November 2019 by the Versailles Court of Appeal, with the fault attributed to the woman on the basis that not having sex with her husband constituted a “serious and repeated breach of marital duties and obligations, making it impossible to continue in a state of matrimony,” the ECHR said.
She appealed the case within France but was rejected, and in March 2021, she took it to the human rights court.
In Thursday’s ruling, a panel of judges found that “the very existence of such a marital obligation ran counter to sexual freedom.”
“In the Court’s view, consent to marriage could not imply consent to future sexual relations. Such an interpretation would be tantamount to denying that marital rape was reprehensible in nature,” the court said in a statement.
It also noted that “the concept of ‘marital duties’ … took no account whatsoever of consent to sexual relations.”
In a statement released by the French women’s rights organization Women’s Foundation, the woman described the decision as a victory “for all women who, like me, find themselves confronted with aberrant and unjust legal decisions, calling into question their bodily integrity and their right to privacy.”
The decision is expected to have cascading legal implications in France, as ECHR rulings are binding on member states. It comes amid a national reckoning over consent laws following the high-profile case of Dominique Pelicot, 72, who was found guilty of drugging his then-wife, Gisèle Pelicot, and inviting dozens of men to his home to abuse her.
Women’s rights groups in France hailed the ruling. “Respect for human dignity must prevail over all archaic interpretations by French judges,” said Emmanuelle Piet, president of the Feminist Collective Against Rape.
The woman’s attorneys, Lilia Mhissen and Delphine Zoughebi, said in a joint statement that the ruling is a “major development for women’s right to control their bodies, including within the framework of marriage.”
Zoughebi said that the decision means marriage is no longer “sexual servitude.”
“It’s not written in the French law that you must have sexual relations when you are married, but judges in France are saying this,” she said. “Now with this decision, they can’t say that anymore.”
Discussion about this post