A 69-year-old French woman has won a landmark ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which determined that refusing to have sex with her husband should not have been grounds for fault in their divorce.
The court ruled unanimously that France had violated her right to respect for private and family life, marking the end of a nearly decade-long legal battle.
Identified as Ms. H.W., the woman celebrated the decision as a significant step in challenging “rape culture” and promoting the concept of consent within marriage. Her lawyer, Lilia Mhissen, stated that the ruling dismantled the outdated notion of “marital duty” and called on French courts to adopt more modern views on consent and gender equality. Women’s rights groups supporting H.W. criticized French judges for perpetuating “archaic visions of marriage” and harmful stereotypes.
H.W., who resides in Le Chesnay near Paris, married her husband in 1984 and had four children, including a daughter with a disability for whom she became the primary caregiver. Their marital relationship began to deteriorate after the birth of their first child, with H.W. developing health problems in 1992. By 2002, her husband had become physically and verbally abusive, leading her to stop having sex with him in 2004. She petitioned for divorce in 2012.
While H.W. did not contest the divorce itself, she objected to the grounds on which it was granted. In 2019, an appeals court in Versailles ruled in favor of her husband, and her appeal to France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, was dismissed without explanation. She subsequently brought her case to the ECHR in 2021, which ruled that governments should only intervene in matters like sexuality under exceptional circumstances and emphasized the importance of consent in all sexual relationships, including marriage.
The court highlighted that agreeing to marry does not imply consent to sexual relations and warned that suggesting otherwise undermines the seriousness of marital rape as a crime. The decision has reignited discussions about marital consent and women’s rights in France, a topic that has gained prominence following high-profile cases such as that of Dominique Pélicot, who was convicted last month for drugging his wife and inviting men to assault her.
Feminist groups and lawmakers have praised the ECHR decision as a crucial step toward legal and cultural reform. A recent report by French MPs has recommended amending the legal definition of rape to explicitly include the concept of non-consent, affirming that consent must be freely given and can be withdrawn at any time.
