France Dismantles Legal Concept of 'Marital Duty,' Cementing Spousal Consent in Civil Code

PARIS – In a significant legislative move reflecting evolving societal norms on bodily autonomy, the French National Assembly has unanimously approved a bill explicitly removing the implicit expectation of sexual obligation within marriage. The cross-party legislation, supported by over 120 deputies, seeks to modernize the foundational principles governing marital commitments.The core objective of the bill is to amend the Civil Code, clarifying that the existing duty of 'cohabitation' does not legally mandate sexual relations between spouses. This legislative intervention directly addresses decades of ambiguity where older judicial interpretations sometimes conflated cohabitation with an implied 'shared bed' obligation, effectively sustaining the notion of a marital duty.The push for reform has been amplified by women’s rights organizations, which argued that the lingering concept undermined the explicit recognition of sexual consent within marriage—a principle France officially adopted into its definition of rape last year, mirroring trends seen across jurisdictions like Spain and the Netherlands.This legal evolution follows recent landmark rulings. Notably, in 2019, a French divorce case hinged on a wife's refusal of sex, though Europe’s top human rights court later overturned the ruling favoring the husband, stating that refusal of sex should not constitute fault in divorce proceedings.With the lower house's approval, the bill now proceeds to the Senate for ratification. Should it pass, it will formally sever the historical legal link between shared residency and sexual obligation, providing clearer legal footing for individual autonomy within the marital contract. This action underscores a broader European trend toward codifying consent as the irreducible basis of all intimate relations, regardless of marital status.Source: Based on reporting from France 24.