"Husband fined $13k for not having sex" | INFJ Forum

"Husband fined $13k for not having sex"

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Sep 30, 2009
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A French woman was so fed up with her sexless marriage that she decided to sue her husband. And she won.
The former couple, known only as Jean-Louis and Monique, had been married for 21 years and had two children when Monique decided to take her husband to court.
Jean-Louis, 51, was fined 10,000 Euro ($13,370) under a civil code that states married couples must agree to a "shared communal life", Britain's The Telegraph reported.
"A sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent," the judge said.
"By getting married, couples agree to sharing their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other."
Jean-Louis' job and ill-health prevented him from fulfilling his matrimonial duties, the court was told.

(source)

the idea that a partner in a marriage could be sued for refusing to have sex disturbs me. it reminds me of how men used to be allowed to rape their wives. many people still seem to implicitly believe that it is ok for men to rape their wives. or perhaps there is some sort of complicated sexism operating in this particular case. do others find this as disturbing as i do?
 
I wouldn't get too worked up about this. The reason it made the news is it's bizarre. Sensationalism sells newspapers.
 
a lotta weird shit on that site that i have no explanation for
 
It is rather disturbing. One would think that you would be able to communicate with one another in a marriage and express concerns about lack of sex or intimacy. What a litigious society we live in that it would even occur to someone to sue someone for such a thing.

I do agree with [MENTION=1678]Norton[/MENTION] but it's still rather mind boggling.
 
er, well i'm not freaking out over it exactly, just interested it as a possible indication of strange assumptions and ideas that are operating beneath the surface of society or culture or whatever that allowed it to come about. bizarre circumstances aren't always accidental of course.
 
Well marriage has been reduced to a contract between him, her, and the State so I am not surprised.
 
Ewww.

I wonder how they came up with the Fine?
Does this place her in the same category as a prostitute?
Why didn't they divorce?
Why didn't she take a lover (or two)?

They must hate each other by now...

:(
 
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Withholding sex is the most self defeating idea one can have. If your partner's not getting it from you they'll get it from someone else. The lawsuit is stupid as I would imagine these issues usually break themselves apart.
 
Perhaps she's just building up grounds for divorce. Having a conviction or proof of marital inadequacies may give her some kind of financial benefit. Sad, but this is the age in which we live.
 
Also, the legal system in France is based on the Napoleonic Code, so who knows the causes, implications and precedents of this lawsuit? OTOH, when it comes to weird lawsuits, the US is adequately represented in the annals of idiocy.
 
Apparently in Jewish wedding contracts the man is required to service his wife sexually whether he wants to or not, but there is nothing to prevent the wife from withholding sex from her husband.
 
I am not sure if she did this to say, "you should force yourself to have sex with me whether you like it or not" as an obligation. I think her point was, if you're going to make a committment, because you care about your spous, then why wouldn't you want to be with them*question mark* I think it's more symbolic than really about forcing someone to pay a fine for not having sex.

Much of our culture doesn't take committments like marriage as seriously as they used to. So, maybe she just got fed up with what she felt was a one-sided relationship.
 
My first assumption isn't "bizarre," well, not the wife's actions, at least. My guess would be that she really wasn't suing because she was all torn up about not getting busy in the sack - it was probably just a ploy to get some money. Greed and avarice are often driving forces behind actions, so, in this case, I'd say that she thought of a rather *ahem* creative ploy to get some green. If there's anything I find bizarre, it's that a court humored and eventually favored the prosecution. I didn't know you could sue someone for something as subjective and vague as "a shared communal life." Why does that have to imply banging? Of course, it would be bizarre to sue over and bring to court such a personal affair (if her motivation were really restitution [but why monetary? Greed, as aforementioned?] for her lack of shagging, something that should be resolved between the people involved, not the government (seriously, people). Of course, the idea of marriage as a contract just makes me uneasy, and is something I generally question, but that's a different discussion.

EDIT: Also, there's just something inherently wrong about all this. If I don't want to fuck you, I don't want to fuck you - my body is my body, and no one can... FINE me because I didn't put out. Really, really people? At this point we're verging on looking at bodies like possessions. Sex is something to be given at the whim of the individual, and to put someone in the position where, if, for whatever reason, they don't feel like having sex, they'll have to pay, is abominable. It's crossing a line. When I think of the wife, I don't think of someone who's entitled to money because her husband didn't feel like having sex - he had his reasons. I see her almost as a putrescent creature. Like others said, if you want sex, go find it - if you define your "marriage" by the availability of sex without regard to other factors or to the reasons behind the withholding of sex, end it. If you would actually sue another person (in this case, your supposed significant other) because they wouldn't have sex with you, look at yourself in the goddamn mirror, find out whatever salvageable remnants of your humanity remain by gazing deep within yourself, and grasp them - because you're on the path to losing whatever sort of decency you might have had.
 
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Ewww.

I wonder how they came up with the Fine?
Does this place her in the same category as a prostitute?
Why didn't they divorce?
Why didn't she take a lover (or two)?

They must hate each other by now...

:(

Yeah... :/
 
I find this disturbing as well, on many levels.
This article/paragraph suggests the idea that he owes her sex, which I disagree with. It is first body (imho), first and foremost. The entire argument seems to be based around a set of assumptions about the role of sex, the responsibilities of marriage, and the meaning of affection. It also seems to have prioritized these assumptions and taken them for granted.

I also wonder how sums of money are decided on in cases such as these. And why money? How does this resolve anything? If the decision is to punish the man, why not make the punishment relevant?

I am also greatly disturbed by the last sentence in the paragraph.
Jean-Louis' job and ill-health prevented him from fulfilling his matrimonial duties, the court was told.

If this statement is indeed valid and honest, the entire story takes on a whole new meaning of disturbing.

So yes, [MENTION=1814]invisible[/MENTION], I do find it disturbing. However, it is so completely and deeply bizarre that I am having difficulty feeling anything than perplexed by it. I'm editing this, and like Dragon wrote in the post below this one, it seems there must be more to the story because something isn't quite adding up.

And [MENTION=1678]Norton[/MENTION] -- Nods. It does.
 
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If this were reversed, a lot of people would be incensed.

I feel like there has to be a lot more to the story, however. I can't believe it would be as simple as not having sex.
 
If this were reversed, a lot of people would be incensed.

I feel like there has to be a lot more to the story, however. I can't believe it would be as simple as not having sex.

^^^What I thought. I don't think this is just about money and obligating someone to have sex. Has to be more than that . . . I think.
 
Apparently in Jewish wedding contracts the man is required to service his wife sexually whether he wants to or not, but there is nothing to prevent the wife from withholding sex from her husband.
This is absolutely true. The Ketubah stipulates all the many obligations the man has to the wife. There AREN'T any obligations of the wife to the husband.