18世纪末，法国曾短暂拥有欧洲最宽松的离婚法。在保守势力的反扑将其废除之前，这项法律允许成千上万的对夫妻仅因“想要离婚”这一理由便结束婚姻，成为离婚反对者与支持者共同关注的焦点。
For a brief period at the end of the 18th century, France had the most liberal divorce laws in Europe. Before a conservative backlash brought it down, the legislation allowed thousands of couples to leave marriages for no other reason than wanting to – and became a touchstone for opponents and supporters of divorce alike.
1792年9月20日，法国首次将离婚合法化，这堪称最私密层面的革命。
When France first legalised divorce on 20 September, 1792, it was revolution at its most intimate.
法国大革命始于三年前，正在彻底颠覆数百年来被奉为圭臬的习俗。1791年，法国第一部宪法将婚姻从天主教会的掌控中剥离，划归国家管辖，并将其定义为民事契约。
The French Revolution had begun three years earlier and was overhauling customs that had been accepted for centuries. In 1791, France’s first constitution wrested marriage out of the hands of the Catholic Church and put it into the state’s remit, defining it as a civil contract.
次年，立法机构通过了该国第一部离婚法案，赋予人们解除这一契约的权利。
The right to break that contract came the following year, when legislators passed the country’s first divorce bill.
法案文本写道：“离婚权源于个人自由，若人被不可解除的束缚所困，这种自由便会丧失。”在此之前，法国的夫妻只能分居，虽可分开居住，但不得再婚。尽管少数新教国家允许离婚，但申请离婚需证明配偶犯有严重过错，通常指通奸或遗弃。
“The right to divorce stems from individual freedom,” the text read, “which would be lost if one were bound unbreakably.” Until then, couples in France could only separate, enabling them to live apart but not remarry. And while a handful of Protestant countries allowed divorce, obtaining one relied on proving a spouse had committed a serious offence – typically adultery or desertion.
法国新法的不同之处在于引入了更多离婚理由——从失踪、虐待、精神失常到逃离革命中的法国——并且关键性地，允许夫妻在不存在任何具体过错的情况下离婚。
France’s new law differed by introducing several more grounds for divorce – ranging from absence to abuse, insanity to fleeing revolutionary France – and crucially, offering couples the chance to split in the absence of any specific fault.
配偶双方可协议离婚，或一方以“性格不合”为简单理由单方面提出离婚。这些规定对丈夫和妻子同等适用。
Spouses could divorce by mutual consent, or one partner could request it unilaterally on the simple basis of “incompatibility”. The rules applied equally to husbands and wives.
研究法国及世界各地离婚史的历史学家罗德里克·菲利普斯表示：“1792年的离婚法非常、非常自由——用今天的眼光看也算自由，但就18世纪末而言，欧洲绝无仅有。”家庭事务 申请离婚的程序同样具有革命性。
“The 1792 divorce law was very, very liberal – actually liberal in today’s terms, but certainly in terms of the late 18th century, there was nothing like it in Europe,” says Roderick Phillips, a historian who has studied divorce in France and beyond.
革命者计划的一部分是将家庭纠纷交由家庭内部解决，而非诉诸律师。离婚事宜由夫妻双方指定的亲友决定——每方各选三人——他们组成了一种家庭法庭。
A family matter The procedure for filing for divorce was similarly radical. Part of the revolutionaries’ project was to make household disputes a matter for families, not lawyers, to resolve. Divorce was decided by relatives or friends appointed by the couple – three for each spouse – who formed a kind of family court.
他们的职责要么是尝试调解双方（如果双方是协议离婚或因性格不合而离婚），要么是听取其中一方有过错的证据。
Part of the revolutionaries’ project was to make household disputes a matter for families, not lawyers, to resolve. Divorce was decided by relatives or friends appointed by the couple – three for each spouse – who formed a kind of family court.
这些家庭成员将共同决定是否准予离婚，以及子女监护权安排、财产分割，并确定是否需要支付子女抚养费或赡养费。随后，法官会将其正式化。整个过程可能需要一个月到一年甚至更久。
Their role was either to try and reconcile the partners, if they were divorcing by mutual consent or for incompatibility, or otherwise to hear the evidence that one was at fault. These family members would decide together whether divorce should be granted, as well as custody arrangements, the division of property and whether child support or alimony was due. Then a judge made it official.
与此同时，在英国，获得离婚的唯一途径是说服议会通过一项私人法案。相比之下，法国的程序使得离婚相对低调且易于实现。法律的滞后性起初，离婚合法化似乎打开了闸门。
The process could take anywhere from a month to a year or more. At the same time in England, the only way to obtain a divorce was to persuade parliament to pass a private act. In contrast, the French procedure made divorce relatively discreet, as well as accessible.
据历史学家苏珊·德桑（Suzanne Desan）统计，法律通过后的11年里，法国发生了约3.8万至5万起离婚案件，但离婚率在1793年至1795年法律生效后不久便达到了顶峰。
The law catches up At first, it looked like legalising divorce had opened the floodgates. Around 38,000 to 50,000 divorces took place in France in the 11 years after the law passed, according to historian Suzanne Desan, but rates peaked soon after it took effect in 1793-95.
曾查阅鲁昂市记录的菲利普斯（Phillips）指出，在许多早期案例中，法律只是在追赶既成事实。
Phillips, who examined records in the city of Rouen, points out that in many early cases, the law was just catching up to the facts.
“例如，鲁昂的第一起离婚案发生在离婚法通过仅几周后，一位女性因丈夫失踪而与其离婚。那是1792年，而他自1763年起就失踪了，”他说。
“For example, the very first divorce in Rouen, just a couple of weeks after the divorce law was passed, was a woman who divorced her husband because he’d been absent. This is 1792. He’d been absent since 1763,” he says.
该男子离家参战后便杳无音信，使他的妻子陷入了法律上的困境。在她获准离婚两天后，她便与一名住在她家地址的男子结婚了。“所以很明显，她可能已经和某人在一起生活了几年，甚至几十年。”一旦这些事实上的离异关系得到法律确认，离婚率便趋于平稳。夫妻双方最常选择的是无过错离婚，这通常也是最简单的申请方式。
The man had left for war and never returned or sent news again, leaving his wife in legal limbo. Two days after her divorce was granted, she married a man who was living at her address. “So she's obviously been in a relationship with somebody for, who knows, years, decades possibly.” Once de facto break-ups had been converted, the rate levelled off. Couples most often opted for no-fault divorces, which were usually the simplest to claim.
在鲁昂，档案显示，申请离婚的人群更可能居住在城市地区并从事技术工作，这些条件使他们更容易独立生活。他们往往结婚年龄稍轻，且更可能没有子女。
In Rouen, the records show people divorcing were more likely to be live in urban areas and perform skilled work, conditions that would make it easier to live independently. They tended to have married slightly younger and were more likely not to have children.
菲利普斯表示：“除此之外，他们似乎是相当普通、典型的民众代表。”法国共和历与革新时间的失败尝试 家庭中的革命 一个显著的趋势浮现出来：在整个法国，大多数离婚申请均由女性提出。
“Otherwise,” Phillips says, “they seem to be fairly a fairly ordinary, straightforward cross-section of the population.” France's Republican calendar and the doomed battle to revolutionise time Revolution at home One striking trend did emerge: across France, most divorces were initiated by women.
“例如，在鲁昂，76份离婚申请中，超过76份是由女性提交的。除了图卢兹，其他所有大城市都是如此，在图卢兹这一比例为66%，”菲利普斯说。
“In Rouen, for example, over 76 petitions of the petitions for divorce were filed by women. And that’s true in every big city except for Toulouse, where it’s only 66 percent,” says Phillips.
当议会辩论该法律时，议员们反复强调，离婚将纠正女性尤其所面临的不公。
As parliament debated the law, lawmakers repeatedly made the case that divorce would redress injustice faced by women in particular.
菲利普斯指出，离婚法是当时一项改革财产权并加重对女性暴力行为惩罚的立法，也是“以革命形象重塑家庭”这一更广泛计划的一部分。
The divorce law was a piece of legislation of the era that reformed property rights and increased punishments for violence against women, Phillips says, and which formed part of a broader project to “remake the family in the image of the revolution”.
“有一种观念认为，在以父亲为首、父亲和丈夫拥有巨大权力的家庭中，父亲就像他小王国里的国王。是时候废除这位国王了。并建立一个共和国——一个在家庭中实现平等、博爱等的共和国。”1793年底，法国新规则实施一年后，一名女性手持婚戒站在立法者面前。她告诉他们，她想将婚戒献给国家，以纪念“神圣的离婚法”，正是这部法律让她得以摆脱不幸的婚姻。
“There’s a sense that in the family with the father at the head and a great deal of power invested in the father and the husband, the father was a kind of king in his little kingdom. And it was time to get rid of that king as well. And to create a republic – a republic in the family with equality, fraternity and so on.” In late 1793, a year into France’s new rules, a woman stood before legislators brandishing her wedding ring. She wanted to present it to the nation, she told them, in honour of the “holy law of divorce” that had allowed her to break free of an unhappy marriage.
“这一天更加纯净，”她说。“我尝到了没有束缚的自由。”法国女性争取投票权的漫长斗争以及为此奋斗的几代人。保守派的强烈抵制：这种自由让保守派感到恐惧，他们对早期离婚率居高不下忧心忡忡，并警告称改革将瓦解社会结构本身。
“The day is purer,” she said. “I taste freedom without constraints.” Women's long battle to vote in France and the generations who fought it Conservative backlash Such freedom horrified conservatives, who wrung their hands over the high numbers of early divorces and warned that reform would unravel the fabric of society itself.
“法国大革命时期的离婚问题成了保守派的执念，”菲利普斯说。“他们坚信离婚恰恰证明了法国大革命有多么糟糕。‘没错，有处决、恐怖统治以及所有那些事。但离婚？天哪。看看他们对法国的社会结构、家庭和社会秩序做了什么’，诸如此类。”1804年拿破仑颁布的新《民法典》适时限制了离婚条件，其中特别规定，妻子必须证明丈夫在婚房内有通奸行为。与此同时，被发现通奸的女性则面临最高两年的监禁。
“Divorce in the French Revolution became a fixation for conservatives,” says Phillips. “They were convinced that divorce just showed how bad the French Revolution was. ‘Yes, executions and the Terror and all of that. But divorce? Oh my God. See what they did to the fabric of France and to the family and to social order’, that kind of thing.” The conditions for divorce were duly restricted in the new Civil Code introduced under Napoleon in 1804, which notably required wives to prove that adulterous husbands had betrayed them in the marital home itself. Women found to have committed adultery, meanwhile, faced a prison sentence of up to two years.
1816年，随着君主制复辟和教会重获影响力，离婚被彻底废除。
In 1816, with the monarchy restored and the Church reclaiming its influence, divorce was abolished altogether.
此后近70年，法国才恢复了离婚制度。当1884年恢复离婚时，仅允许在存在严重过错的情况下离婚。
Nearly 70 years would pass before France reinstated it. When it did, in 1884, divorce was only allowed in the case of serious fault.
直到1975年，当法国社会正处于另一场变革之中时，夫妻才得以再次仅仅因为不幸福而离婚——这与近200年前人们享有的权利如出一辙。
It wasn’t until 1975, when French society was in the midst of another revolution, that couples would once again be able to divorce simply because they weren’t happy – the same right people nearly 200 years before them had enjoyed.
法国议员批准法案，在存在同意权担忧的情况下终止“夫妻义务”。尽管法国的第一部离婚法存在时间短暂，但据菲利普斯称，它成为了进步人士的典范，也是反动派的前车之鉴。
French lawmakers approve bill to end ‘marital duty’ after consent concerns Although short-lived, according to Phillips France’s first divorce law became a model for progressives, and a cautionary tale for reactionaries.
“整个19世纪甚至20世纪，不仅在法国，在其他地方，人们在反对放宽离婚限制时，都会以法国大革命期间发生的事情为例，”他说。
“Right through the 19th century and even the 20th century, not only in France, but in other places, people argued against liberalising divorce by pointing to what happened during the French Revolution,” he says.
“他们说：‘哦，人们想离婚就离婚。丈夫结婚、离婚、再结婚、再离婚、再结婚、再离婚……’ 对发生之事的歪曲解读，成了保守派和教会在离婚问题上的参照标杆。”相比之下，葡萄牙于1910年、西班牙于1932年引入离婚制度时，均效仿了法国大革命的榜样。
“They say, ‘oh, people just got divorced whenever they wanted to. Husbands got married, divorced, married, divorced, married, divorced...’ Mischaracterisations of what happened became this point of reference for conservatives and for the Church when it came to divorce.” In contrast, when Portugal introduced divorce in 1910 and Spain in 1932, both adopted France’s revolutionary example.
“因此，它成了左翼人士的典范；而右翼人士则倾向于将其视为必须不惜一切代价避免的反面教材，”菲利普斯说。“一百多年来，它一直是一个颇具标志性的存在。”
“So it was a model for people on the left wing. And then something that people on the right wing tended to point to as something that should be avoided at all costs,” Phillips says. “For well over a hundred years afterwards, it was something that was quite iconic.”