First law to reform marriage and family law

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Basic data
Title: First law to reform marriage and family law
Abbreviation: 1. EheRG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Private law , family law
References : 404-19-1
Issued on: June 14, 1976
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 1421 )
Entry into force on: July 1, 1977
Last change by: Art. 21 VAStrRefG of April 3, 2009
( BGBl. I p. 700 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		September 1, 2009
GESTA : C154
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The First Law to Reform Marriage and Family Law (1st EheRG) from 1976 was a fundamental revision of marriage law , divorce law and divorce procedure law in the Federal Republic of Germany by the then social-liberal government coalition under Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt . The basis for this was the recommendations of an expert commission presented as early as 1970. Due to the early dissolution of the Bundestag in 1972, a corresponding first draft was not discussed in the Bundestag until 1973. Parliamentary deliberations on the draft dragged on until 1976. On June 14, 1976, the new law was finally promulgated.

Changes by law

Until the First Marriage Law Reform Act, the distribution of tasks between spouses was regulated in the Civil Code of 1900. According to this one- earner model , the man was usually responsible for the financial support of the family, while the woman was responsible for housekeeping and child-rearing. The wife was only allowed to work if this was compatible with her duties in marriage and family. In the first reading, in which the Bundestag discussed an improved draft on marriage and family law, then Justice Minister Gerhard Jahn stated :

“Despite numerous changes over time, a one-sided priority for men has been maintained to this day [...]. The aim of the draft is a marriage law that corresponds to the partnership understanding, a fair and honest divorce law and a fair divorce law. "

- Gerhard Jahn, 1973

With the new regulation in principle, the model of "housewife marriage" has been replaced by the partnership principle. Since then, there is no longer any legally prescribed division of tasks for marriage. Spouses must show equal consideration for each other and for the family.

In the event of a divorce, the previous principle of fault was discarded, according to which the spouse who was largely responsible for the failure of the marriage had to be dependent on the other partner and their children. Instead, the break-up principle was introduced, according to which if a marriage failed, regardless of fault, the economically stronger partner always had to pay the economically weaker alimony . In addition, a pension equalization was introduced, which was supposed to give divorced spouses an equal share in the pension, annuity and life insurance entitlements acquired during the marriage. The equivalence of gainful employment and reproductive work was recognized to some extent for the first time through the equalization scheme.

The law established separation periods for divorce. If both partners agreed, a separation of one year was required, if only one partner applied for a separation of three years. In particular cases of hardship , the necessary separation time could be shortened.

Other components of the law were the change in naming rights and the introduction of family courts . The husband's name was no longer automatically the common family name; instead, when they got married, fiancés could choose either the husband's or wife's name as the common family name and thus also the family name of their future children. The other spouse could put their maiden name in front of the married name. The newly created family courts were responsible for the entire divorce proceedings instead of the regional , district and guardianship courts previously responsible for individual divorce issues .

Reception in the press

In 1976 Eva Marie von Münch welcomed the “abolition of housewife marriage” in an article in Die Zeit . Almost two decades later, the Focus criticized an alleged "abuse by greedy adulterers" and noted an "increase in divorces submitted by women to 85 percent" since the introduction of the new regulation.

literature

Technical article

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c B John, E Stutzer: Employment behavior of educating vacationers . In: Journal of Family Research . 14th year, issue 3/2002, pp. 215-233.
  2. ^ K Dressel, S Wanger: gainful employment: To the situation of women on the job market . In: Handbook women and gender studies . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-91972-0 , pp. 481-490. doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-531-91972-0 57
  3. ↑ Prolonged housewife suffering through the Equal Rights Act? lto.de, June 18, 2017
  4. ↑ Peter Borowsky: Social Liberal Coalition and Internal Reforms. Marriage and family law , information on political education (Issue 258), Federal Agency for Political Education April 5, 2002
  5. ↑ D Lucke , I Beuter: Gender aspects of family law and social legislation  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 106 kB). Bulletin 26 of the Center for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin , 2003, pp. 14–26.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / alt.gender.hu-berlin.de  
  6. ↑ Eva Marie v. Münch: Housewife marriage abolished. In: Die Zeit , October 15, 1976.
  7. ↑ Marika Schaertl: KO by divorce. In: Focus , No. 40, 1994.