The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) sided with a 69-year-old French woman whose husband had obtained a divorce on the grounds that she had stopped having sexual relations with him.
"The European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights," a statement said.
The woman, who has not been named, had brought the case with the backing of two French feminist groups, arguing that the French court ruling contravened human rights legislation by "interference in private life" and "violation of physical integrity".
It comes after a ruling in the Appeals Court in Versailles which pronounced a fault divorce in 2019 because of her refusal to have sex with her husband.
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The court ruled that the facts of the case "established by the admission of the wife, constitute a serious and renewed violation of the duties and obligations of marriage making intolerable the maintenance of a shared life".
The woman did not complain about the divorce, which she had also sought, but rather about the grounds on which it had been granted, the Strasbourg-based court said.
Any concept of marital duties needed to take into account "consent" as the basis for sexual relations, the statement said.
"The Court concluded that the very existence of such a marital obligation ran counter to sexual freedom, (and) the right to bodily autonomy," it said.
"The applicant's husband could have petitioned for divorce, submitting the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage as the principal ground, and not, as he had done, as an alternative ground," the court found.
"The domestic courts had not struck a fair balance between the competing interests at stake."
The couple married in 1984 and had four children, including a daughter with disabilities who needed the constant presence of a parent, a role that her mother took on.
Relations between husband and wife deteriorated when their first child was born. The woman began experiencing health problems in 1992.
In 2002, her husband began abusing her physically and verbally, the court said.
In 2004, she stopped having sex with him and in 2012 petitioned for divorce.
In 2019, the appeals court in Versailles dismissed the woman's complaints and sided with her husband, while the Court of Cassation dismissed an appeal without giving specific reasons.
Feminist groups Fondation des femmes (Women's Foundation) and Collectif féministe contre le viol (Feminist Collective against Rape) backed her appeal, deploring the fact that French justice "continues to impose the marital duty" and "thus denying the right of women to consent or not to sexual relations".
"Marriage is not and should not be a sexual servitude," the joint statement says, pointing out that in 47 percent of the 94,000 recorded rapes and attempted rapes per year, the aggressor is the spouse or ex-spouse of the victim.
The issue of marriage has recently been brought into shocking focus in France by the Pelicot case - Dominique Pelicot admitted drugging his wife and inviting dozens of strangers to their home to rape her while she was unconscious.
The case has sparked renewed conversation about rape culture in France, and possible changes to the legal system - a report by MPs has backed changing the law to introduce a consent clause into the legal definition of rape, similar to Spain's 'only yes means yes' law.
ANALYSIS Will the Pelicot trial lead to lasting change in France?
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