A young Saudi bride has divorced her husband for because he is too short (file picture)

A young Saudi bride has divorced her husband because he is too short.

The woman, 20, claimed that she could no longer take the ridicule she received for towering over her spouse.

In legal documents she claimed that overshadowing her husband during their brief seven month union had made her feel 'painfully uneasy' and 'distressingly uncomfortable.'

The case was described as peculiar by the endowment department in Al Qatif in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, according to Gulf News.

The couple involved have not been named.

News of the divorce has received a mixed reaction on social media, with many claiming the bride should not have agreed to marry the man in the first place.

This is not the first time that height has been found to be an important consideration in matters of the heart.

A joint study by Rice University and the University of Texas found that women want a man who towers over them because it conforms to gender stereotypes and makes them feel protected.

Using data collected from online dating adverts, they found that 13.5 per cent of the men wanted to date only women shorter than they are.

In contrast, nearly half of the women – 48.9 per cent – wanted to date only men taller than they are.

Both F1 boss Bernie and singer Rod Stewart don't appear to mind being overshadowed by their wives.

‘Evolutionary psychology theory argues that ‘similarity is overwhelmingly the rule in human mating,’ said Michael Emerson, the Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology and the study’s co-author.

‘However, our study suggests that for physical features such as height, similarity is not the dominant rule, especially with females.’