The Calcutta High Court has recently ruled that a husband can be granted divorce from his wife for subjecting him to mental cruelty if she forces him to be separated from his parents and also labels him a “coward and unemployed.”
According to a bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Uday Kumar, it is common practice for a son in an Indian household to live with his parents even after marriage, and if his wife attempts to separate him from his parents, there must be a justifiable reason for doing so.
“Indian culture fosters the concept of the son’s pious obligation to support his parents. If a wife attempts to deviate her kid from the regular practice and customs of society, she must have a legitimate reason for doing so. The wife desired that the husband be separated from his family. It is not common practice in India for a son to be separated from his parents at the instance of the wife,” the bench observed.
In the current case, the bench noted that there were no ‘justifiable reasons’ for the wife to ask the husband to split, other than instances of ego clashes over trivial household issues and challenges with meeting financial obligations. It was noticed that the husband had moved out of his parents’ home and into a rented one solely for the purpose of his peaceful marital life.
“As a result, the appellant’s desire to have separate residence with her husband away from in-laws is not justified, and it amounts to cruelty. No husband would normally tolerate such wifely behavior, and no son would want to be separated from his parents and other family members. The wife’s relentless efforts to force the husband to be separated from the family would be torturous for the husband,” the bench highlighted.
The bench was hearing a petition filed by a wife contesting a family court ruling in Pashim Midnapur granting divorce to the husband on the grounds of cruelty on May 25, 2009. The couple’s marriage had been dissolved by the family court on July 2, 2001.
It was the husband’s argument that his wife referred to him as a “coward and unemployed” and continued to start fights over little matters in order to distance him from his parents.
The bench highlighted multiple instances of the wife’s unpleasant behavior, including her hostile attitude towards the husband and his family.
She wrote in her personal diary, “I hate that coward to whom I am going to marry,’ and that she had no consent to marry to an unemployed person like him and tried to stop this marriage as she wanted to marry elsewhere, even after the marriage was finalized, but her parents forcibly married her to petitioner.”
“It suggests that she was dissatisfied with her marriage because she indicated that ‘she wanted to marry elsewhere’, despite this, the husband did his best to accommodate with her,” the bench stated.
The Court also noted that the wife had falsely filed a complaint against the husband, costing him his government position.
“When she learned about his service, she declared that there would be no compromise and that she would not allow him to join his service. These facts amount to mental cruelty on the part of the husband,” the court ruled.
Long separation, mental and physical agony, and the unwillingness of the parties to live together have left no room for repair of their marital link, according to the Court, and in such a case, the marriage has become a fiction despite being backed by a legal tie.
In such circumstances, the law does not serve the sanctity of marriage by refusing to cut that tie; on the contrary, it displays scant concern for the partners’ sentiments and emotions, which may lead to mental cruelty.
So, the bench reasoned while dismissing the wife’s petition that denying a divorce decree would be devastating for the parties.
