France is to enshrine in law the end of so-called “conjugal rights” – the notion that marriage means a duty to have sex.
A bill approved on Wednesday in the National Assembly adds a clause to the country’s civil code to make clear that “community of living” does not create an “obligation for sexual relations”.
The proposed law also makes it impossible to use lack of sexual relations as an argument in fault-based divorce.
Though unlikely to have a major impact in the courts, supporters hope the law will help deter marital rape.
Ok but where is that other possibility you are talking about? There are like you said and stated 4 different ways:
Both agree and agree on the splitting of possessions
Both agree and disagree on the splitting of possessions
Your spouse commits “serious or renewed violation of the duties and obligations”
And you don’t live together anymore for at least a year and this is not consensually (which it seems you would also have to prove)
Given you live in a dead bedroom relationship (say after you got children or due to medical problems) and you accepted it (which can take years already). From these 4 choices you are basically out of luck and stuck. Either you get a new place (and potentially abandon your children) or you can proof that you life together but in rapture(I think that’s the correct word) but this can very easily be impeded by your spouse and if you are the primary caregiver for your children even hard to proof. I mean you can get your own bank but when your partner just doesn’t give you money you kinda still have to use the shared one or get bills paid by your partner. Do I miss anything here? Because this means instead of however long a divorce will take it will now take at least a year more. Because if I see this correctly with the acceptance period and cout time this will already take upwards of 4 years or 5% of your life were your needs will not be satisfied(or even attempted to be satisfied).
I don’t know about France but most civilized countries I know about have laws against rape in marriage, without looking it up I guess France have too. Martial obligations should encompass normal relationship things like caring for each other, being consensual and having sex. Saying key points for a median relationship like sex are not part of your obligation in a marriage feels absurd to me. Feeling coerced to have sex to not fault the marriage for me feels again completely illogical even as an argument. At this point your marriage is broken because at least one partner is very unhappy with it. This will just prolong the time you are stuck in a broken marriage and therefor maximize unhappiness. Having a dead bedroom marriage can even lead to you being unfaithful, faulting your marriage. Sex is the strongest urge in humans after all. This all just seems like a lot of Christian morals and not much of useful laws.
Btw if sex is not a martial obligation why is faithfulness again? Does sex now matter for marriage or does it not?
For me this feels just like populism. instead of useful and meaningful changes to an obviously broken law a bandaid is used that just makes the law more broken. It is based on “things have occured” without any data to back it up just on a “feels like it level”. Why, instead, scrap option 3 and 4 and just replace it with a “doesn’t work for me anymore” option? Why is there still a judgement based system and not a relationship quality based system in place? Because this is just veiled populism, sexism and religious moral.