Why be a cruel spouse?

Staying out late and that too, without informing your wife can mean more than just being reminded by her that you’re married. According to a recent Bombay High Court verdict...

Staying out late, and that too, without informing your wife can mean more than just being reminded by her that you’re married. According to a recent Bombay High

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Couple

Court verdict coming home late regularly without informing about your whereabouts, amounts to cruelty towards your wife.

With the law on their side, the women are obviously elated. “This is a welcome news. Men are always careless when it comes to keeping people at home informed about their whereabouts,” says Kavita Gupta, who got married recently.

For housewife Puja Mehta, the verdict is a “new tool to threaten” her husband with. Recalling an instance when her husband didn’t return home till well past midnight, she says, “I was new in the city with no relatives for help. And I was on the verge of going to the police station to report that my husband had gone missing, when he finally arrived.”

While women celebrate the verdict, the men call it ‘biased’. Akhil Sharma, 32, asks, “If staying out late without informing your wife amounts to cruelty, what about the cruelties that women inflict upon men, like never getting sick of shopping, constantly nagging and prying on their husbands?”

And women, say men, are equally capable of keeping their husbands guessing about their whereabouts. While the jury is still out on whether or not women should be made equally answerable to their partners, psychiatrist Dr Sanjeev Chugh plays the peacemaker in the war of the sexes. “Coming home late regularly, and not informing your spouse is disregarding a relationship and is an emotional abuse. Men or women, doesn’t matter,” he concludes.