Chennai: In a significant ruling, the Madras High Court said that a husband cannot seek divorce from his wife merely on grounds that she watched porn or engaged in self-pleasure and masturbation.
A bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and R Poornima observed that just because a wife watches porn privately, without compelling her spouse to join, doesn’t amount to marital cruelty.
However, the court noted that since porn portrays women in a degrading manner, watching such content would negatively affect the viewer in the long run.
“Personal and community standards of morality are one thing and breach of law is another… Merely watching porn privately by itself may not constitute cruelty to the petitioner. It may affect the psychological health of the viewing spouse. That by itself will not amount to treating the other spouse cruelly. Something more is required. If a porn watcher compels the other spouse to join him or her, that would certainly constitute cruelty. If it is shown that on account of this addiction, there is an adverse impact on the discharge of one’s conjugal obligations, then it could furnish an actionable ground,” the court said in a March 19 ruling, the Bar & Bench reported.
The Court added that a husband cannot seek divorce on the allegation that the wife indulges in self-pleasure and masturbation.
The bench made it clear it would be a gross violation of a woman’s sexual autonomy to ask her to respond to an allegation that she indulges in self-pleasure and masturbation.
“When masturbation among men is acknowledged to be universal, masturbation by women cannot be stigmatised. While men cannot engage in sexual intercourse immediately after indulging in masturbation, that would not be the case with women. It has not been established that the conjugal relationship between the spouses would suffer if the wife has the habit of masturbation,” the high court ruled while rejecting a man’s petition seeking divorce from his wife on grounds of cruelty.
Apart from claiming in his divorce petition that his wife was addicted to porn, the man levelled several other allegations including that she was a spendthrift, refused to do household work and ill-treated her in-laws.
However, the court found no sufficient proof provided by the man to support the charges.
“If after contracting marriage, a woman has sexual relationship outside marriage, it would furnish ground for divorce. However, indulging in self-pleasure cannot be a cause for dissolution of marriage. By no stretch of imagination, can it be said to inflict cruelty on the husband,” said the high court verdict, according to Bar & Bench.
