Divorce

It has always been  a surprising factors for me and a non understood phenomenon as to why two people who very intimately and with lots of love and affection decide to marry each other and start living together, suddenly come to a stage where they think their co- existence is not possible. It was a mystery for me till I started my practice as a lawyer but, not anymore.

Today I thought that I shall pen down some of the cases which came into my knowledge due to my professional life as a Lawyer. Initially I shall take on cases in which the wife approached the court asking for separation. In this series of articles I shall print different cases. Here below is case number 1.

Case I

This is the case in which the woman approached the court after four years of her marriage. She was married to a lawyer, an advocate of the high court. This was an arranged marriage.

The woman was from an orthodox family where intermingling with the boys was considered bad and was prohibited. She had her basic religious education and then she attended a girl’s school and completed her junior school education. She was a very pretty lady rather she was extra ordinarily beautiful girl. When she got married she was almost 19 years of age. Her name was Ainy.

The man, Mr Advocate, was much older to the girl. When they got married, he was 40 years of age. His name was Fareed. He was also from an orthodox religious family and all his 4 brothers were clerics and his two sisters were working women. Mr Fareed was a graduate of law and was practicing law for the last 12 years. He had good practice. Initially, he was living with his parents but, after marriage he acquired a rented house and moved in there with his wife.

Apparently, they were living happily. The normal routine of an advocate is very tough. He will have to leave his house so as to reach and attend court which starts at 08.30 a.m and normally continues till 2 p.m. Then again he has to come back and attend his office from 5 pm to 10 pm or 11 pm. Then after having his dinner, he has to prepare for the next day court cases. Depending on the cases, normally it is almost 2a.m that he goes to bed. The only time he has for his family is on Sunday.

Mr Fareed and Ms Ainy remained married for four years and they had a very pretty baby girl of three years old, when Mrs Fareed i.e., Ms Ainy filed her papers for divorce.

Let me brief you a little about the family law and the family courts in Pakistan. Normally these are judges of the court who are nominated as family judges and have their separate courts and they hear the cases on priority. The family law of Pakistan is very comprehensive and mainly helps the girls. However, it is within the law and the court instructions to the judges that initially they try their utmost to save the marriage. Thus keeping that in view, it takes almost minimum 90 days to complete the proceedings.

Normally it is very difficult for the people to contest a case against an Advocate, not that he is more learned but, as per the set courtesy procedure of the courts, normally no other advocate takes the case when he learns that it is against a colleague advocate. This is the first hurdle which is faced by the persons who are contesting against an Advocate. Same happened with Ms Ainy. Initially she was not finding any lawyer who could contest her case. Only after the permission from Mr Fareed that a female lawyer Ms Anila Advocate appeared for Ms Ainy. I was requested by Mr Fareed to appear from his side.

After the initial formal appearances, the court as usual arranged meeting of the wife and husband in a separate room, in seclusion, with the instructions to both of them to talk to each other and remove whatever were their differences/ misunderstandings. It was initially with quite difficulty that they both agreed to sit together. After initial few appearances and with lot of pursuance from the court as well as from me and Ms Anila Advocate, that both agreed to patch up and live together again.

The court decided in their favour and dismissed the case.

However, I knew from the core of my heart that this marriage will not succeed and the lady will again come to the court for divorce. Why?

During the process of the proceeding, when we were trying the compromise deal, I happened to listen to the wife and I realised that whatever is happening in their house if continues, the wed lock will break. I actually developed my sympathies with the wife and exerted my weight to the maximum on the Husband and asked him to change his attitude if he wants his marriage life to succeed. I asked him to do it at least for his beautiful daughter.

Well, let me share as to what was wrong, why I said above that the wife will again approach the court for the divorce and what was that which became unbearable for the wife to live anymore with her husband.

Mr Fareed was a very mistrustful person. When he used to go for his job, he used to lock her wife inside the house and she was not allowed to contact anyone in the meanwhile. So much so that he used to take the telephone instrument along with him and used to install back on his return. She was only allowed to use the telephone in her husband’s presence. Secondly, whenever Mr Fareed returned home, he would start searching the entire house, all bathrooms and even the garbage bin, as if looking for an evidence of somebody’s presence in the house that came in his absence. His initial 10 minutes on his return to the house in the afternoon and in the evening was spent on this stupid search which was very agonising for the wife. Then, quite randomly, whenever he used to get some spare time during the court hours he used to come for the surprise check.

Moreover, he was in habit of replacing the door lock after every week or so. Even then he never used to be satisfied and regularly interrogated his wife under suspicion. He was never satisfied with the answers and used to beat her by not believing her. Now everybody will agree with me that under these circumstances, it was very difficult for a woman to live. I don’t know how this poor lady survived these four years. Hats off to her. But once she called it a day and said enough is enough.

Under firm promise from Mr Fareed that he will leave his bad habits, the compromise deed was made effective and Ms Ainy willingly moved to her husband’s house. Normally Girls of our society tries their level best to make their marriage life a success.

The lady approached the court again within three months and the court separated them, as I expected. 

Posted by Zaffar Iqbal Durrani