Anyone who has made chai on a gas stove knows that the flame decides everything. Keep it low and patient, and the leaves open up, the ginger softens, the milk turns the colour of a good afternoon. Push it to high because you are in a hurry, and the milk climbs the sides of the pot and spills over before you can reach for the ladle. Nobody blames the tea. People ask who turned up the flame.
That, in the end, is the question the Madras High Court has just asked about a marriage. Its answer has been read by many as a blanket rule against wives who want a separate home. It is not that simple, and the difference matters to every couple who has ever argued about where to live.
Madras High Court Verdict: Pressure to Live Separately as Cruelty
The Madras High Court recently held that a wife who forces an only son to leave the joint family and set up a separate residence, and who goes to her maternal home frequently without reason, commits cruelty against her husband. A bench of Justice PT Asha and Justice N Mala refused to disturb a Family Court order that had granted the husband a divorce on the ground of cruelty.
The case is reported as S v. S, Civil Miscellaneous Appeal No. 2942 of 2026 (2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 438). The wife appealed under Section 19 of the Family Courts Act, 1984, against a decree dated 8 July 2026 passed by the Family Court at Cuddalore. The High Court dismissed her appeal.






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