French lawmakers on January 28 unanimously approved a landmark bill aimed at ending the long-contested notion of “marital duty,” following sustained criticism from women’s rights groups who argue the concept has been used to undermine sexual consent within marriage and obscure marital rape.
The proposed legislation, backed by more than 120 members of parliament in the lower house National Assembly, seeks to clarify the French civil code by explicitly stating that cohabitation between spouses does not create any obligation to engage in sexual relations. Supporters say the reform is necessary to align civil law with modern understandings of consent and bodily autonomy.
The bill was adopted with cross-party support, reflecting a rare consensus on a socially sensitive issue. It will now be debated in the Senate, the upper chamber of parliament, before it can become law.
Under current French law, the civil code outlines four duties attached to marriage: fidelity, support, assistance and cohabitation. While sexual relations are not explicitly mentioned, the absence of clear language has allowed older legal interpretations to persist. In particular, some past court rulings equated cohabitation with the idea of a “shared bed,” reinforcing the belief that spouses owed each other sexual access.
That interpretation came under renewed scrutiny after a widely publicised case in 2019, when a French court granted a man a divorce on the grounds that his wife had stopped having sex with him. The ruling sparked outrage among feminist groups, who warned it effectively penalised women for refusing sex and perpetuated the idea of conjugal obligation.
The case eventually reached Europe’s top human rights body. In 2025, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of the woman, finding that a spouse’s refusal to have sex could not be treated as a fault in divorce proceedings. The court emphasised that sexual freedom and consent are fundamental rights that do not disappear within marriage.
The French bill also fits into a broader shift in the country’s legal framework on sexual violence. In 2025, France adopted the principle of consent into its legal definition of rape, bringing its legislation into line with reforms already enacted in countries such as the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
Lawmakers backing the new bill say it is a logical next step, ensuring that civil law fully reflects the principle that marriage does not override individual consent.
