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THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DIVORCE
By : M.R.Sethi
If marriages are
made in heaven, they are broken on earth. In the modern permissive
society, when marriage is fast losing its sanctity, getting a
divorce has become as common as moving into a new house.
Once differences crop us between the husband and the wife and
married bliss turns into a nightmare, almost any ground is
sufficient for parting the ways. But some couples terminate their
marriages for bizarre or hilarious reasons.
One of the very common reasons given for seeking divorce is the
‘mental agony’ inflicted on the spouse by his or her partner. But
there is not specific criterion to define the term and some people
would feel persecuted for trivial reasons. An English women sued her
husband for divorce because he wrote the name of the murderer on the
title page of the whodunit book she brought home to read. She could
not, therefore, enjoy the murder mysteries and it caused her mental
agony.
The second section of T.S.Eliot’s poem The Waste Land is titled ‘A
Game of Chess’ and the poet conveys the idea that love in the modern
times is reduced to just moves and counter moves as in a game of
chess. However, Hilga Porjus, the ex-fashion model of Sweden reduced
her love to riddles. She was sued by her husband for divorce because
she insisted on him solving three riddles before allowing her to
make love to her.
In the beginning the husband took it playfully, but with the passage
of time the riddles become harder and harder and his wife more and
more unapproachable. The poor hubby soon found him in a position
when he could solve only about three riddles every two months – with
the help of his friends. In the end, the sex-starved husband was
left with no option but to wriggle out of the marital riddle by
seeking divorce.
Books have the power to change your life, so believe the
bibliophiles. But New Zealand’s Sue Barnett realized that books
would at least change her marital life, if not the whole life. After
marriage she found to her chagrin that her husband was more
interested in reading books than making love to her. She would toss
and turn in the bed in vain while her husband was lost in the
fictional world and her amorous antics failed to bring him back to
the world of love making.
In her petition for divorce, Barnett told the judged that for the
entire three year period of their married life, her husband had
spent the time – when not sleeping – reading book after book. “And
even on our wedding night,” she told the court, “he sat up reading a
book for the whole night. I remained a virgin for a whole year,
until on a holiday, I hid all the books, so that he had nothing to
do except make love until the next morning when he rushed to the
nearest library.”
While every husband would wish his wife to be devoted to him, no one
would go to extent of forcing his wife wash his feet every night.
Yet this is exactly what broke up the marriage of Clay and Rita
Farnall. Clay Farnall, a factory worker wanted his wife to wash his
feet every evening after he returned from work. Rita, his young
wife, had enjoyed doing it during their courtship days, but after
marriage, she longer found the task agreeable and slowly cracks
appeared in their married life.
Things came to a head one day, when she refused to wash his feet and
he declared, “These feet will not be washed until you wash them.”
Rita refused to yield and Clay continued to live with the unwashed
feet.
When months passed by and the repulsive odor of the unwashed feet
became intolerable, Rita sought divorce. The moment Clay Farnall
entered the court to defend his case, the judge covered his nose
with a handkerchief and ordered all the windows to be opened.
Fearing he would fall unconscious if he delayed the judgment, the
judge granted Rita’s petition at once.
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