Why not Divorce if the Guy can’t Live with His Parents?

Recently, a court granted a divorce to a guy because his wife insisted that he can’t live with his parents. A lot of blogs and articles have denounced this verdict and called it discriminatory. But I disagree. I think it’s a great thing. Here are the facts:

  1. Guy desperately wants to live with his parents (for whatever reason)
  2. Girl is 100% opposed to it
  3. Two people have non-negotiable demands
  4. And you expect these people to remain married?

So what’s wrong over here? The court absolutely did the right thing in granting a divorce! Does anyone really think it’s a fantastic idea to force this couple to live together with such diametrically opposite viewpoints?

I think the reason for the outrage is that the girl in India typically leaves her parents, and no big deal is ever made about it. But if it matters so much to the woman, she should make a big deal out of it! Don’t “adjust”. Don’t accommodate demands that go against what you believe in. In this case, if the genders were reversed, I would totally support the woman if she files for divorce saying that this is non-negotiable. And then let’s see what the court says.

We need divorce laws in India to become much, much easier. Why should a couple even have to give a reason for a divorce? Are they answerable to anyone? If they don’t want to live together, then that’s all there is to it. Their reasons are their own. In fact, it’s enough if even one person wants to get a divorce. A marriage is supposed to be an ongoing, consensual relationship. Like sex. You can’t have sex with the consent of just one partner right? Otherwise, that becomes rape!

So feminists instead of slamming this judgment, should celebrate it. They should encourage more and more women to put their foot down and file for divorce if the husband proves too callous to their needs. The solution here is to have more divorces, not less! The goal isn’t to continue the marriage at any cost, but to break the marriage when the costs become too high. If women “put up with it”, then that is not healthy. That needs to change. More women need to file for divorce, and leave bad marriages.

This ruling is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, it will encourage some women to seek divorce on the same grounds.

So can anyone else explain to me exactly, why this ruling is a bad thing? And what would you do if you were the judge in this case?

What do you think of this post?
  • Agree (10)
  • You're an asshole (1)
  • Don't Agree but Interesting (0)

15 thoughts on “Why not Divorce if the Guy can’t Live with His Parents?”

  1. The only truly consistent position on marriage and divorce is that government should have no role in it whatsoever. Marriage is a social thing and should have no legal status whatsoever.

    Then everyone can define marriage exactly the way they want: between man and woman, between 1 man and 3 women, between 6153 men and 4249 women, between 34 intersex persons and 12 gay guys, 5 robots and 5 aliens…whatever.

    At one stroke this will solve all the problems of laws around divorce, alimony, etc and all controversies around definitions of marriage.

    Reply

    • In reply to AB

      Maybe but since humans and by extension the society we create are flawed, we would still need legal intervention in some (not necessarily all) divorce cases. I mean you’d still have cases of abuse – physical, mental, emotional, financial etc – and cases where one person wants out but the others don’t and so on. It becomes even more complicated when children or business transactions are involved or large financial settlements. Another thing is that as long as we have inequality between groups of humans (men/women, caste/religion, rich/poor and so many others), you can never really have ‘amicable’ or even more importantly equitable divorces.

      The thing that our Indian courts still don’t get is that they should stop making moral judgements on divorce cases. If a woman doesn’t want to accompany her husband to his new workplace and they want a divorce, your job is just to grant it! Not invoke mythology and say ‘Sita followed Rama into the jungle’ and so on (I still can’t believe that case happened!) Like in this case, I certainly think the outcome is right – you can’t force 2 people to live together against their wish (at least not in a democracy) – but why lend support to outdated and uncivilized customs in the process?!

      Reply

      • In reply to Shilpa J

        @Shilpa

        “I mean you’d still have cases of abuse – physical, mental, emotional, financial etc – and cases where one person wants out but the others don’t and so on. ”

        Physical abuse: you have the law behind you, legal marriage or no legal marriage.

        Mental and emotional abuse : you can always sue for it in a court of law.

        Financial abuse : Everyone can enter into voluntary contracts. If someone is dumb while drawing up the contract, it is nobody else’s fault. No different from losing money because someone didn’t read terms and conditions carefully.

        “Another thing is that as long as we have inequality between groups of humans (men/women, caste/religion, rich/poor and so many others), you can never really have ‘amicable’ or even more importantly equitable divorces.”

        This is the part why so many people including me believe that feminism has nothing to do with equality, but is a facade for leftists to take even more control of our lives. Why muddy the waters? Either equality under the law or not. Are you rejecting equality? Let me guess: in the name of creating “equitable divorces”, you want the government to create an elaborate system of interfering in people’s lives. And let me tell you, this power hunger of the left is *exactly* the same thing as the power hunger on the right. The conservative right wishes to snatch power from the individual in the name of customs and religion. You call them “uncivilized”. The feminist left wants exactly the same thing and they are doing it in the name of creating “equitable conditions”.

        NO! Religious conservatives don’t get to tell people what to do with their marriages. And neither do feminists! Married adults get to make their own decisions. This possibility of individual rights and responsibilities is just as frightening to you as it is to the “uncivilized” people who interfere in the name of sanskriti and religion.

        Reply

  2. I don’t know about other feminists- but I had a problem with the wordings of the verdict about how women should live with guys’ parents because our great Indian culture says so. I have had to help a few of my friends when they were going through this and the amount of mud-slinging in court is unbelievable. I am not talking about divorces due to domestic violence/dowry etc. The ones like the above due to non-negotiable differences. I asked them if so much manipulation and distortion of facts is required. They said its needed to make the case strong. It’s sickening.

    Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        That was my reaction precisely. Before I read the actual judgement/ruling, I was happy thinking that we’re making progress in divorce laws. And then I read what the judge said and..well let’s just say I’l less than thrilled. I don’t get this Indian mindset of staying in a bad marriage (bad by the definition of the 2 people in it, not yours or scoiety’s) is ‘respecting’ it but wanting a divorce is ‘disrespecting’ marriage. Really?

        Divorce needs to be easy otherwise we’re just putting high exit barriers to marriage and pretending that yippee, we have fewer broken marriages than America/UK/insert whatever country you want. If the judge is granting divorce on the grounds of cruelty, then EVERY Indian woman living away from her parents is bloody well entitled to the same excuse. I seriously cannnot wait for someone to file a divorce case stating it’s her duty to look after her parents and her husband won’t live with them.

        My parents and many other couples I know have only daughters. So who’s going to look after them in 20 years? If they can take care of themselves, so can the entitled parents of every Indian Son out there! Just out of curiosity, is there no way for an Indian couple to get a divorce simply because they want to? As in we want different things which we found out only after the wedding, so now we want out? It’s like the social pressure to stay married isn’t enough, you have legal pressure too! Are we still kindergarten kids or something?

        Reply

      • In reply to Shilpa J

        As of now, India has no laws to just separate if both couples want to. The law on “irretrievable breakdown” has been languishing in parliament for a long time. It’s funny, but the main opposition is coming from women’s groups. They feel that by making divorce easy, many men will just up and leave their wives high and dry.

        And before you say alimony, we need to keep in mind that the justice system is very slow in India, and it can take years for a divorced woman to receive even a few thousand rupees if the man wants to just hold it back.

        In the US, alimony can go directly from the paying spouse’s paycheck. We have no similar system in India.

        Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        Hmm yeah alimony and spousal support payments can be difficult I guess. To me personally, rather than reconsidering divorce, things like this make me reconsider marriage in the first place. The harder it is to get out of, the more I’m going to resist getting in!

        Reply

    • In reply to Nidaa

      The language in which higher courts of India speak is absolutely appalling. Second graders express themselves better than Supreme Court judges.

      Reply

  3. I have no problem with the judgement; I think it was a good decision taken by the judge. The only issue was the wordings- labeling it as ‘cruelty’, and citing our ‘Great Indian Cultural values’.

    Reply

  4. I so agree with you. Also I think that the courts need to give up this tendency for “trying to save the marriage” – what is it to the court? In fact for divorces of mutual consent, it should be possible to simply unregister a marriage and unless contested by one of the participants in the said marriage, it should not require a further circus of waiting for months, court expenses, lawyer expenses and what not.

    While we are at it, marriage should simply be the registration of a formally recognized relationship and should allow custom contracts between the people marrying as long as they are legal and consensual. Whatever the sex, religion or hell, even the number of people marrying each other. It is going to be really tedious to fight for rights from scratch every time we find a new prejudice to dig our heels into.

    Reply

  5. I agree with you. I also think that a divorce can be initiated by either party. And as some of the comments say, the courts have a regressive view. But the decision is progressive, so I am all for it.

    Reply

Leave a Comment