Marriage is a union of two people. It is oft repeated and probably one of the most recognized advice about marriage that we receive. It is probably only topped by the statement ‘Marriage is a compromise’. Its strange to me, that what is considered a divine union of two people is also considered a compromise, but facts rarely lie. It is true that I have seen maybe a little bit more than my fair share of divorces and pushed some along the way, and maybe that is why probably I can say that I might be in a slightly better position to extrapolate on marriage and its various facets.
At the base of it, marriage is two individuals and very often their families trying to create a cohesive unit. The problem comes, as it does in almost all other human interactions, when people are not compatible. We bring two individuals, sometimes from various different backgrounds and a different value system into a bond where they are expected to not just like each other, but societally expected to love each other till death do them part. Very often it works, marriages are without doubt the foundation of our society, the basic unit on which our cultures function and they are essentially the same in all cultures, mostly monogamous and come with societal expectation of a family.
But what about when it does not work. It is almost impossible for every couple to get along with each other, especially when very often the couple themselves seem to have little to no say in whom they marry. The individual expectations give way to what your family thinks is the best match, or even if you choose your partners yourself, young couples are sometimes woefully ill informed of what a marriage actually is beyond the honeymoon phase.
Today marriage is under a scanner, much deeper than it has probably ever been. In my humble opinion we are now at a stage where we are trying to box conversations and categorise them into ‘cruelty’ or ‘not cruelty’. The latest judgment isolated reporting of the Kerala High Court stating that ‘comparing wife to other women is mental cruelty’ gives credence to my statement. A bare reading of the judgment will ensure that the reader knows that the question before the court was not simply the fact that the husband was comparing his wife to other women.
WHAT IS MATRIMONIAL CRUELTY?
Cruelty is an extremely subjective term, which on one hand is clear as day, specially when there is incidence of physical abuse, or mental cruelty in the form of abusive language or coercive control of women, on the other end it is hazy. Cruelty can be anything perceived as being cruel. Essentially it would depend on the dynamics of the couple themselves, over what they are willing to adjust to, or compromise with. I have seen women, who although do not like that their husbands compare them with other woman, do not really consider this as a dealbreaker. It is probably for this reason itself that the legislature in its wisdom has refused to quantify and define what cruelty is. It has left it to the wisdom of the courts to decide on a case to case basis of what might constitute mental cruelty. As has been done by the Kerala High Court, where the lady in question had been married for 13 long years but had stayed in the matrimonial relationship only for 1 month. When we read this judgment we realise that rather than just interpret this one statement of the husband, the Court was looking into an entire relationship that started in 2009, it looked at various allegations including non consumation of the marriage.
The first interpretation for cruelty and what might constitute cruelty was given by the Supreme Court in Sobha Rani vs Madhukar Reddi (1998) 1 SCC 105 where the Supreme Court while dealing with cruelty under Section 13(1)(i-a) of the Hindu Marriage Act opined that although the provision does not define cruelty, cruelty may mean physical or mental cruelty. In Samar Ghosh Vs Jaya Ghosh (2007) 4 SCC 511 it was further extrapolated that cruelty cannot contain within its ambit differences between the couple because those arise in day to day matrimonial life.
As society and its dynamics have changed, so have the Courts’interpretation of cruelty. What initially was considered to only be physical cruelty has now morphed into an interpretation where divorce on the grounds of cruelty may be given on the basis of mental cruelty. In these cases, the Courts will consider the entire background of the marriage and its various facets and try to understand how the action alleged to be cruel has affected one of the spouses. Instances which have been identified as cruelty range from adultery to calling the spouse fat, asking the spouse to live separate from his old aged parents, public embarrassment and humiliation amongst others.
The need for the Courts to enter such private conversations comes from the fact that India believes in the ‘fault’ theory for divorces, which essentially means that to get a divorce one party has to be at fault in the marriage. It is only under these specific ‘faults’ as enumerated under the Acts that divorces can be granted except when petitioning for divorce by mutual consent. The problem with fault theory is that it takes away from the fact that the breakdown of a marriage is not necessarily due to a fault. It refuses to recognize the idea of ‘irretrievable breakdown’. What happens in these matters is that very often the Courts in their equity and justice try to grant the parties divorce, couching specific acts as ‘cruelty’, and while appropriate for those specific and particular cases, they are not suitable as precedent. Since the High Courts and the Supreme Court judgments become binding on lower courts, this creates a difficulty in interpreting the law or an action as ‘cruelty’ when sometimes it is just a disagreement between couples. This is further exacerbated by the media reporting only the ‘juicy’ bits of the judgment as has been done in the case of the Kerala High Court judgment.
As our society advances, and our laws are interpreted dynamically, I believe we as individuals and as a society should admit that sometimes marriage do not work, not due to faults, but simply because the individuals needs and choices are different from their spouses. It is time for us to understand and recognize that marriages are not made in heaven, they are made on earth amongst humans and sometimes they break down.
The author has served as the Additional Solicitor General of India.