Sheldon J considered whether the divorce petitioner had established that she should not be expected to continue to live with her husband. An earlier behaviour petition by her had been rejected as making insufficient allegations against H.
Held: Sheldon J said: ‘the wife would be entitled to a decree in the present suit if she could establish (a) that their marriage remained irretrievably broken down . . and (b) that since March 16, 1976, he has behaved in such a way that she could not reasonably be expected to live with him. In my judgment, moreover, it is not necessary for her to establish . . that the husband’s behaviour, of which she now complains, was in any way responsible for the breakdown of the marriage.
On the other hand, of course, the facts that the marriage had clearly broken down and, a fortiori, that the breakdown was due to the fault of the wife are or may be matters in determining whether the husband’s behaviour since has been unreasonable in this context. The court must have regard to the whole history of the matrimonial relationship.
Sheldon J
[1979] 1 WLR 885
England and Wales
Citing:
Adopted – Welfare v Welfare FD 12-Oct-1977
Bush J heard a defended divorce petion sand said: ‘Conduct of a respondent could not be looked at in isolation but had to be viewed in the light of all the surrounding circumstances, including the degree of provocation.’ He continued to adopt the . .
Cited by:
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: . .
Cited – Owens v Owens SC 25-Jul-2018
W petitioned for divorce alleging that he ‘has behaved in such a way that [she] cannot reasonably be expected to live with [him]’. H defended, and the petition was rejected as inadequate in the behaviour alleged. She said that the section should be . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 09 August 2021; Ref: scu.581084