Labels: abortion, culture, France

posted by Eve at 8:26 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A French court on Tuesday allowed a lesbian woman to adopt a child with her partner after 11 years of legal battle, in what gay rights campaigners said was an unprecedented victory.

French law allows single people to adopt but not same-sex couples, a position that has been criticized by the European Court of Human Rights. ...

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Emmanuelle B. had been fighting to assert her right to adopt with her partner since 1998, when the authorities rejected her first application. She had taken her case to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in her favor in January 2008.

The Court said France was applying double standards because on the one hand it allowed single people to adopt, while on the other hand it was denying that right to Emmanuelle B. on the basis that there was "no father figure" in her home.

Labels: adoption, Fathers, France, gay parenting, single parenting

posted by Eve at 12:12 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Like a used car, must a groom take his bride "as is" – with no warranty implied as to the woman's chastity?

That was the question at the heart of a legal case that recently worked its way through the French courts.

The drama began on a Muslim couple's wedding night. Apparently, the bride wasn't the virgin the groom thought she was. He immediately brought suit to annul the marriage on the grounds that his wife's virginity was an essential condition of the marriage. French contract law states that if one of the parties to a contract is mistaken as to some essential element, then the contract is void.

The question was whether the woman's virginity was an essential element of the marriage contract. If it was, then the contract could be annulled. If it was not, then the couple was validly married.

As neither party objected, the trial judge saw no harm in granting the annulment. He failed to foresee the media storm that would ensue. Prominent members of the French government, including the dynamic minister of justice, Rachida Dati, were outraged. She ordered the government to intervene and appeal the decision. ...

The government argued that the wife's virginity was not an essential condition because her unchaste past has no effect on married life. The judges agreed. Even if she had lied, they said, it did not matter, as a woman's lies about her past love affairs are not matters essential to her married life. In short, a woman's past is her own.

Labels: France, Marriage

posted by Eve at 12:10 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT