Divorce Law

Desertion is intentional and indefensible abandonment of responsibility towards a spouse. It is a willful abandonment or willful failure to provide for the care, protection or support of a person towards his/her spouse who is in necessitous circumstances. Simply put, legal desertion is a ground for divorce in Hindu marriage law.

In a Hindu marriage, a decree for divorce can be sought based on specific grounds such as adultery, polygamy, renunciation, conversion by a spouse and so on. However, many legal problems are not just about Hindu divorce law.  There are so many legal questions about adoption, maintenance and inheritance that Hindu individuals or families face often.

Marriage is not merely about the joining of hearts, as we like to call it, but it involves a more serious dimension: the legal sanction for sexual intercourse between the couple who have married each other. The Indian courts have held that even transient penetration does not amount to consummation of the marriage.

Assisted reproductive technology or ART as it is termed refers to any medical technique that enables the creation of a pregnancy by means other than natural reproduction through sexual intercourse.

Although the term 'ART' sounds contemporary, the actual practice of artificial insemination as an effective means to cure infertility dates back to the period when the wife of King Henry IV of Castile had to undergo in order to produce royal heirs. With the passage of time and advancement of technology, this became a thriving industry.

In a Christian marriage, adultery is one of the grounds for dissolution of a marriage. The meaning of the word has not been defined under the Act but it has been interpreted to mean voluntary sexual intercourse of a married person with another other than the husband or wife.