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Lots of married couples complain that their sex lives aren’t as robust as they once were... but are you breaking the law if you’re not giving it up like you used to? If you live in France, you might be.
The UK’s Telegraph is reporting that a judge has ordered a French man to pay his ex-wife more than $13,000 in compensatory damages for enduring a sexually insufficient marriage for 21 years. The judge ruled: “A sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent. By getting married, couples agree to sharing their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other.”
So. Many. Questions. First, who gets to decide how much sex is “enough”? The couple has two children, so the union wasn’t totally sexless. And no, I’m not saying twice in 21 years is plenty, but what if she wanted it six times a day and he only wanted it every other week? Would she be entitled to financial compensation then?
And if our French friend was so sex-starved, why did she wait twenty-one years to leave the guy? I can’t be the first wife out there to admit that my sex drive is not quite as robust as my husband’s. (Although I may be the first to dissect the disparity in graphic detail in my book.) But I think putting a price tag on the deed -- especially after the fact -- is cheap and just a little bit creepy.
