Forcing Wife To Quit Job Amounts To Cruelty 91-8877001993

For many years, marriage has been an institution that has always been buttressed on love, trust, and understanding between two people. On the contrary, when one partner fails to respect the other or tries to force his or her authority on the other partner, the base of the relationship starts to break. 

One such problem that has come to the spotlight in the recent legal and social debates is the issue of husband forcing wife to quit job, a phenomenon that has gained recognition as torment, hence able to provide justification for divorce in various jurisdictions.

Cruelty as Ground of Divorce

• Cruelty as ground of divorce is encompassed within the ambit of Section 13 (ia) of the Act. 
• Section 13(1)(ia) introduced the notion of ‘cruelty’ as a ground for divorce in the Family Courts Act. 
• Before 1976, however, cruelty was ground only for seeking a divorce by judicial separation under Section 10 of the Act. 
• Cruelty is a concept that cannot be dissociated from the way of life of human beings. Rather, societal layers, lifestyles, relationships, characters, and feelings, which are determined by social stratification, all play a vital role in cruelty. 
• Making untrue statements to the husband and initiation of false cases against him results in immense psychological distress and pain and is therefore an extreme form of cruelty.

Why in the News?

A bench of Chief Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari has held that making a wife quit her job is cruelty in the eyes of law. The Madhya Pradesh High Court held this in case X v. Y.

In the case of X vs Y:

• The couple tied the knot on April 19, 2014. In 2017, the Appellant was assigned the position of Assistant Manager with LIC Housing Finance Limited. 
• The Respondent maintained the wife left her work and stayed with him until he found employment. 
• The Respondent husband filed a petition under Section 9 of the 1955 Act after the appellant had filed for divorce. 
• Subsequently Section 9 application was withdrawn. 
• The Learned Trial Court refused to grant divorce to the parties in the case of husband forcing wife to quit job. 
• Consequently, an appeal is filed in the High Court.

Observation by the Court

• The Court noted that it was not open to either spouse to compel the other to do or refrain from doing any work of their own choosing. 
• The Court also noted that the given circumstances were such that the husband made it impossible for the wife to continue working and expect her to live only how he wants and how he intends, which is cruelty. 
• In light of the above reasons, the Court permitted the dissolution of the marriage.

Forcing a wife to quit her job goes beyond marital troubles and fundamentally undermines her personhood and independence. To characterize such a practice as cruel also under the law is to take an important step in the direction of preventing marriage from being understood only as a power asymmetry. With advancement in societies, it is most essential that the legal system, the social framework and attitudes about cultural practices guard the rights of every individual in a marriage. It is only under these circumstances that the very spirit of peace in marriage and respect for persons can truly be achieved.

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