A woman refusing her husband physical relations amounts to cruelty. This is what the family court recently held while granting divorce to a couple on a petition in which the husband had sought separation.

The couple was married for only two months in December 2009 when the woman left the husband’s house to live separately. The husband, in his divorce petition, claimed that his wife used to fight with him regularly and would refuse physical relations. She used to pick up fights with her husband’s family members, and no kind of pacifying worked.

The husband further claimed that after a fight his wife used to go to her parents’ home and would return only after a lot of coaxing. In his petition, the husband explained that he suffered immense mental cruelty and sought dissolution of marriage.

During the court proceedings, the woman did not appear after which the court proceeded ex-parte – or in the presence of only one party. The court took into account an affidavit filed by the man and another witness supporting his claims.

The family court also offered a discerning view of the term ‘mental cruelty’, noting that mental cruelty shall infer from the act and circumstances. “To decide mental cruelty, several factors are required to be taken into consideration – social, economic, political, conditions of parties, their values in life, morality, etc.

In one set of circumstances, an act may amount to cruelty, in another it cannot be termed as cruelty,” the family court noted.

After going through evidence and considering the fact that the woman had not challenged her husband’s claims, the court, while allowing a divorce decree, observed: “Certainly, refusal of physical relations without sufficient cause may amount to cruelty.”

The court said that in the present case, the woman had refused physical relations to her husband and had left his house without any cause. It summed this up as being tantamount to cruelty.

Marital discordThe couple was married for only two months in December 2009 when the woman left the husband’s house to live separately. The husband, in his divorce petition, claimed that his wife used to fight with him regularly and would refuse physical relations. She used to pick up fights with her husband’s family members, and no kind of pacifying worked.