France’s parliament has taken a significant step to remove the long-standing legal notion that marriage implies a duty for spouses to engage in sexual relations.
On Wednesday the 28th of January2026, the National Assembly unanimously approved a bill to amend the country’s civil code to explicitly state that the “community of living” between married partners does not create a requirement for sexual relations.
Until now, the French Civil Code listed general marital obligations such as respect, fidelity, support and shared life but did not directly mention sexual intimacy. Despite this silence in the law, some judges had interpreted “shared life” broadly enough to suggest an implied duty to have sex, which critics say undermined consent.
The new legislation clarifies that marriage carries no automatic sexual obligation, and it also prevents a lack of intimacy from being used as a basis for fault-based divorce.
The bill’s sponsors including Green Party MP Marie-Charlotte Garin have argued that allowing the idea of a conjugal duty to exist amounted to tacit approval of dominance by one spouse over the other. They maintain that consent must be clear, continuous and voluntary, and cannot be assumed simply because two people are married.
Although the concept of marital rape was criminalised in France decades ago and consent is now central in defining sexual offences, the ambiguity in civil law has persisted. Backlash against this ambiguity intensified after a 2019 divorce case saw a wife labelled at fault for refusing sex; that decision was later overturned by the European Court of Human Rights, which found that equating a refusal to have sex with a marital breach violated fundamental rights.
Supporters of the reform say the change is largely symbolic but important in reinforcing that sexual autonomy is a right for all adults, including within marriage. The bill now moves to the Senate for further consideration, and if approved there, it could be signed into law later this year.