conjugal right
Noun: A legal and social entitlement inherent to the marital relationship, encompassing the mutual rights and expectations between spouses to companionship, cohabitation, sexual relations, and shared domestic life, as recognized by law and custom.
The term "conjugal right" is used in legal, sociological, and formal contexts to describe the bundle of entitlements and obligations that marriage confers upon each spouse towards the other. It emphasizes the reciprocal nature of these rights.
Examples: * The court's ruling emphasized that denying cohabitation without just cause could be an infringement of a spouse's conjugal right. * In some legal systems, the concept of conjugal rights forms the basis for claims of restitution of conjugal rights, where one spouse can petition the court to order the other to resume living together. * Their prenuptial agreement was careful not to waive fundamental conjugal rights related to mutual support and respect.
- "Restitution of conjugal rights": A specific legal action or remedy where a spouse petitions a court to order the other spouse to return to cohabitation and resume marital relations.
- The law on the restitution of conjugal rights is considered archaic in many modern jurisdictions.
- The phrase is often used in the plural form "conjugal rights" to refer to the collective entitlements within marriage.
- Conjugal (adjective): Of or relating to marriage or the relationship between spouses.
- They enjoyed a period of conjugal bliss.
- Conjugality (noun): The state of being married; the marital relationship.
- Marital right
- Spousal right
The concept of "conjugal right" is historically rooted and its interpretation has evolved. While traditionally it strongly implied a right to sexual intercourse, modern understandings in many societies focus more broadly on mutual rights to consortium (companionship, love, affection, and sexual relations), support, and shared domestic life. The enforcement of such rights, particularly through legal actions like "restitution of conjugal rights," is rare and controversial in contemporary law, as it conflicts with principles of personal autonomy.
- the right of married persons to the enjoyment of association and sympathy and confidence and domestic happiness and the comfort of living together and eating meals at the same table and profiting from joint property right and the intimacies of domestic relations