France, the birthplace of human rights and the motto “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”, is often one of the beacons of decency that the world needs. It is the first country that has opted for and now wants to be the first in Europe to protect its mental health. And yet, he still had a huge outstanding debt: the so-called “marital duty.”
We are talking about the obligation still contemplated within a marriage to maintain regular sexual relations, whether one feels like it or not. A legal corset that continued to be used successfully in some divorce cases, even generating a kind of mental commitment between couples. No more: the National Assembly has overturned that article, opening the door to . A huge advance.
What was the situation now?
- In French law, marriage is legally based on four obligations: fidelity, help, assistance and community of life. It is precisely this last notion that has long caused confusion. Considered too vague, it was sometimes interpreted as “community in bed”, leaving the idea of an implicit sexual obligation between spouses. The law now explicitly rejects this interpretation.
- Currently, the French Civil Code stipulates in its article 215 that “the spouses mutually commit to a life together”, a phrase used in the context of a divorce case concluded in France in 2019 in which a man obtained its dissolution alleging the exclusive fault of his wife, who had stopped having sexual relations with him. The case finally reached the , which ruled against France, in January 2025. A 69-year-old woman had brought the case before that court, which ruled that her fundamental rights had been violated by divorcing her for misconduct for refusing to have sexual relations.
To amend it, the text approved yesterday by the French Lower House adds that “this life together does not create any obligation for the spouses to maintain sexual relations”, a phrase that will be read aloud in the town halls by the civil registrars during the ceremony of each marriage.
This union “cannot be a bubble where consent for sexual relations is acquired, definitive and for life,” she told media such as the deputy of the Ecologist and Socialist Party Marie-Charlotte Garin, who has presented the bill together with Paul Christophe, from the center-right Horizontes formation.
Obviously: you have to want
This cross-party bill enshrines in black and white a fundamental principle: consent remains an essential condition for any sexual act, even within marriage.
The text adopted now specifies, in article 215 of the Civil Code, that the community of life “does not create any obligation for spouses to maintain sexual relations.” This clarification is very symbolic, since the article is read at marriage ceremonies at city hall. You had to swallow it before saying yes.
In recent years, several courts had still issued faulty divorces on the basis that one of the spouses – the wife in most cases – refused to have sexual relations, considering this refusal as a breach of marital obligations.
A ruling from the Court of Appeal of Versailles, for example, of November 7, 2019 refers to the wife’s “continuous refusal” of any intimate relationship, described as a “serious and repeated failure to comply with the duties and obligations of marriage that makes the continuation of cohabitation intolerable.” Thick words for a reality that involved force and even violence in some cases.
The law comes at a time when sexual violence within a couple remains underreported in the neighboring country. According to what was published on September 11, 2025, 57% of women report having had marital sexual relations without wanting it, compared to 39% of men.
