Woman who refuses sex is not ‘at fault’ in divorce in France, rules top EU court
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European court of human rights sides with French woman whose husband obtained divorce on grounds she was only person at fault. Europe live – latest updates. A woman who refuses to have sex with her husband should not be considered “at fault” by courts in the event of divorce, Europe’s highest human rights court has said, condemning France.
The European court of human rights (ECHR) sided on Thursday with a 69-year-old French woman whose husband had obtained a divorce on the grounds that she was the only person at fault because she had stopped having sexual relations with him. The ECHR held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of the woman’s right to respect for private and family life as part of the European convention on human rights.
It ruled against France, saying a woman who refuses to have sex with her husband should not be considered “at fault” by courts in the event of divorce. The court identified the woman only by the initials HW, saying she lived in Le Chesnay in the western suburbs of Paris. The woman did not contest the divorce, which she had also sought, but rather complained about the grounds on which it had been granted by a French court.
The Strasbourg-based ECHR said any concept of marital duties needed to take into account “consent” as the basis for sexual relations. “The court concluded that the very existence of such a marital obligation ran counter to sexual freedom, [and] the right to bodily autonomy,” a court statement said. “The applicant’s husband could have petitioned for divorce, submitting the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage as the principal ground, and not, as he had done, as an alternative ground.”.
