Wives Are Not 'Deemed Maids': Bombay High Court Says Refusal To Perform Domestic Chores Like Cooking, Cleaning Is Not Cruelty

Wives are not 'deemed maids' and thus, their failure to perform domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning etc does not amount to cruelty, held the Bombay High Court recently. 

A division bench of Justice Bharati Dangre and Justice Manjusha Deshpande quashed and set aside a judgment of the Family Court in Mumbai, which on July 23, 2010 granted divorce to a Chartered Accountant man, on grounds of cruelty.

The man, alleged that his marriage with his wife lasted from February 28, 2002 to July 7, 2002 (hardly four months) as the wife did not perform domestic chores, could not cook proper food, did not respect elders of the house and even embarrassed the in-laws in the society. The wife, however, denied such allegations.

"For grant of divorce on the ground of cruelty, the actions, complained of must be severe and causing extreme mental or physical violence rather than ordinary household disagreements. This squarely applies to the present case. Mere failure to perform domestic work such as cooking, cleaning does not automatically amount to cruelty as marriage is a partnership of equals and not a service contract and the wife's are not 'deemed maids.' Therefore, refusal of the wife to perform daily chores even in our view do not qualify as a mental cruelty," the bench held in the judgment pronounced on May 8.

The bench opined that to invoke the ground of cruelty there has to be consistent apprehension in the mind of a spouse that the continued cohabitation has become so unbearable making it impossible to live with the other spouse. The first hurdle, the judges pointed out, is the period of cohabitation of the wife and the husband, which is so short that it is beyond comprehension that the parties found it impossible to live with each other any further.

"The allegations made against the wife are of trivial nature that are usually made by the respective spouses against each other in the beginning of their marriage. The conduct of cruelty must be persistent for a fairly long time, where the relationship had deteriorated to such an extent that it is impossible for the wronged party to cohabit with the other party. Considering the length of cohabitation of the parties, we do not find that they have lived together for sufficient length of time to infer from the conduct of the wife, whether it would amount to cruel behaviour to such extent, which made their cohabitation impossible," the bench held. 

In the judgment authored by Justice Deshpande, it is noted that the couple's marriage lasted hardly for three months and the allegations are made on the background of such a short tenure of cohabitation. Therefore, the question remains that whether the behaviour of the wife about lack of expertise in domestic work, cooking food and constant bickering amounts to cruelty or not, the bench said. 

"We find that this phenomenon is usual feature in the beginning of a marriage. Therefore, this behavior alone would not amount to cruelty during the short stint of cohabitation. The allegations made by the husband are general, which are usually made by the parties to a marriage in the initial days of adjustments. Thus, this ordinary wear and tear of marriage has been given undue weightage to treat it as cruelty. We do not find the allegations to be of such a nature that it can be termed as 'cruelty' of such intensity making the respondent entitled for a decree of divorce," the bench ruled. 

With these observations, the bench quashed and set aside the Family Court's judgment. It further ordered the husband to pay Rs 10,000 each towards monthly maintenance and rent for the wife. 

Appearance:

Advocate Aditi Naikare was appointed through Legal Aid to appear for the Wife.

Advocate Vaibhav Jagdale represented the Husband. 

Case Title: KBC vs BSC (Family Court Appeal 159 of 2010)

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Bom) 262

Click Here To Read/Download Judgment