Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 06:00 IST | Agency: DNA
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Man refused to attend functions, chose to sleep a lot in spare time
If the husband is asocial, he ignores invitations from friends, chooses to spend most of his spare time eating and sleeping, such behaviour is cruelty towards the wife and is valid grounds for a divorce, according to the family court.
In a recent judgement, the court granted divorce to a woman, who was married in April 2008, and had moved to the US with her husband who had a job there.
She stated in her petition that the husband treated her like a stranger, the marriage was not consummated and that on one occasion when she tried to get out of the house he threatened her with dire consequences and told her to return to India.
"He is in the habit of discarding invitations extended by some of his friends for dinner and prefers to stay alone in the house, eating a lot and sleeping during his spare time. He hardly knows people around," the woman said in her petition.
The woman also described an instance when they were invited to the birthday celebration of the husband's brother's daughter. She said the husband did not interact with relatives and stayed aloof throughout the party.
Then, on the advice of an uncle, he apologized to his wife for his irrational behaviour.
However, the woman stated that she got tired of the continuous harassment and when her attempts to convince the husband to lead a normal marital relationship failed, she returned to India.
The judge issued notice to the husband to appear before the court and reply to the woman's allegations, but he did not respond.
Consequently, the court accepted the case of the woman and passed an ex-parte order granting divorce.
This judgement once again highlights the issue of mental cruelty in marriage, quite apart from the common physical torture suffered by married women.
A couple of years ago, the Supreme Court underlined that there could not be any comprehensive definition of "mental cruelty" within which all cases could be covered.
Besides, this was bound to change with the passage of time and the impact on culture and value system by changing lifestyles and the media.
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