Wife's Inability to Conceive Cannot Be Ground for Divorce on Cruelty: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court has held that a wife's inability to conceive cannot be grounds for divorce on the basis of cruelty. A Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and M.D. Sumathi dismissed a husband's appeal, noting that marriage cannot be reduced solely to procreation and a spouse cannot be deemed to have failed matrimonially merely because the couple did not have children.

The husband had alleged that his wife, after an initially peaceful marriage beginning in June 2007, began humiliating him, suspected him of infidelity, frequently left home and refused intimate relations. He claimed she publicly called him impotent and assaulted him in June 2016 before leaving. The wife denied the charges, stating she had undergone fertility treatment to continue their marriage.

The Court upheld the family court's finding that the allegations of assault and humiliation were not satisfactorily proved. It emphasized that unproved allegations, when accumulated, cannot automatically constitute proved cruelty. The Bench also highlighted the physical and emotional burden of fertility treatment on couples.