A spouse walks away from the marriage bed and wants this to be legally recognized. I told her/him that s/he could not get a divorce because s/he was at fault for having walked away without an apparent cause. S/he had made public a liaison with another person. I don’t care about divorce, s/he said: I just don’t want the other to harass me physically. S/he barges into the separate house I have rented. Disrupts my office. Can’t s/he be restrained from doing that?
I have deliberately made the above gender narrative neutral though the case I am talking of concerns a husband having left the marriage.
Apart from his marital fault of adultery, my client was exemplary in other spheres of marriage: as a parent, as a provider and even in correct demeanour and protocol towards his estranged spouse. Similarly, a wife who wants to walk away could well be exemplary in all spheres of marriage; she could be self-supporting, non-demanding, a good parent but might seek to be ‘left alone’.
Read the full article published in Seminar Read here.
