A human rights court has sided with a French woman who appealed the grounds of her divorce after it was ruled that her decision to stop having sex with her husband was to blame for the relationship ending.
The 69-year-old took the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), stating that courts should not consider refusing to have sex as grounds for fault in divorce.
The court sided unanimously in favor of the woman, named only as Ms H.W, as it found that the initial ruling in the French courts had violated a European human rights law – the right to respect private and family life.
It ended almost a decade-long dispute, and it has been dubbed by the lady as a step in the right direction to ending ‘rape culture’ and promoting consent between married couples.
In its assessment, the ECHR wrote: “The Court cannot accept, as the Government suggest, that consent to marriage implies consent to future sexual relations. Such a justification would be liable to deprive marital rape of its reprehensible character.
“The Court has long held that the idea that a husband cannot be prosecuted for the rape of his wife is unacceptable and that it is contrary not only to a civilised notion of marriage but also and above all to the fundamental objectives of the Convention, the very essence of which is respect for human dignity and freedom.
“In the Court’s view, consent must reflect the free will to have a particular sexual relationship, at the time it occurs and having regard to its circumstances.”
The woman, who was born in 1955 and lives in Le Chesnay, a commune located on the outskirts of Paris, shares four children with her former husband.
The pair married in 1984, but after 28 years together, she filed for a divorce in 2012.
Their marital issues began soon after their first child in 1992, then by 2002, the woman’s husband allegedly started physically, and verbally, abusing her.
Two years after that, she stopped having sex with him.
Through the divorce, the family home was awarded to the woman in 2013, with her ex being ordered to vacate the property.
Two years later, she sued her husband for divorce on the grounds of fault – she claimed that her husband had given priority to his professional career to the detriment of their family life and that he had been ‘irascible, violent and hurtful’.
