The parties disputed the duty of the wife to continue cohabitation with her husband after a finding that he was guilty of cruelty toward her. The House was also asked as to the nature of ‘unreasonable behaviour’.
Lord Reid said: ‘A judge does and must try to read the minds of the parties in order to evaluate their conduct. In matrimonial cases we are not concerned with the reasonable man as we are in cases of negligence. We are dealing with this man and this woman’ and ‘No one has ever attempted to give a comprehensive definition of cruelty and I do not intend to try to do so.
Much must depend on the knowledge and intention of the respondent, on the nature of his (or her) conduct, and on the character and physical or mental weakness of the spouses, and probably no general statement is equally applicable in all cases except the requirement that the party seeking relief must show actual or probable injury to life, limb or health’.
Lord Pearce said: ‘It is impossible to give a comprehensive definition of cruelty, but when reprehensible conduct or departure from normal standards of conjugal kindness causes injury to health or an apprehension of it, is, I think, cruelty if a reasonable person, after taking due account of the temperament and all the other particular circumstances would considered that the conduct complained of is such that this spouse should not be called on to endure it’.
Reid, Evershed, Morris of Birth-y-Gest, Hidson, Pearce LL
[1963] UKHL 5, [1964] AC 644, [1963] 3 WLR 176, [1963] 2 All ER 966
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Birch v Birch CA 22-Oct-1991
W appealed against dismissal of her petition for divorce to the effect that her husband had behaved in such a way that she could not reasonably have been expected to live with him. The judge had found H difficult but that his behaviour was not to . .
Cited – Owens v Owens CA 24-Mar-2017
Unreasonable Behaviour must reach criteria
W appealed against the judge’s refusal to grant a decree of divorce. He found that the marriage had broken down irretrievably, but did not find that H had behaved iin such a way that she could not reasonably be expected to live with H.
Held: . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Family
Leading Case
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.248552
