A woman who wants to divorce her husband of 40 years because she says their marriage is unhappy has lost her case in the supreme court.
Five justices upheld rulings by a family court and the court of appeal that Tini Owens must stay married to Hugh Owens.
Tini, who is in her late 60s, wants a divorce. She says her marriage to Hugh, who is in his 80s, is loveless and has broken down.
She says he has behaved unreasonably and that she should be allowed to end her marriage. Hugh, however, refuses to agree to a divorce and denies her allegations about his behaviour. He says that if their marriage has irretrievably broken down it is because she had an affair, or because she is “bored”.
so i know that tumblr is super focused on the usa and women’s rights over there, but this is really fucking important case in uk law
unlike the us, the uk doesn’t have no fault divorce. you have to have been married for at least one year before filing for divorce, and then you have to pick one of five grounds under which divorce is permitted
- adultery – 14% of divorces, but only counts if you didn’t continue as a couple for six months afterwards, unless the affair is still ongoing or there’s more acts afterwards. fun fact, however – if you are in a civil partnership instead of a divorce, you can’t use this ground at all! really fucking shitty, am i right?
- desertion – if your spouse left you for more than 2 years in the last 2 and a half, then this ground is usable. only 1% of divorces are under this ground, however
- 2 years separation – 27% of divorces, as it requires mutual agreement between the couple
- 5 years separation – 13% of divorces, this is what the court has told ms owens she has to use, and she can only file under this ground in 2020. this is used in cases when your partner objects to the divorce, shittily enough
- unreasonable behaviour – 45% of divorces, and this is what ms owens used when she filed. to quote the government’s page on divorce, your spouse must have “behaved in such a way that you cannot reasonably be expected to live with them”, with examples of abuse, violence, and drugs/alcoholism
(note – scotland has slightly different divorce law, as it changes the 2 years separation to 1, and the 5 years separation to 2. no much better, but a little)
and long story short… three different courts (the family court, the appeals court, and now the supreme court) have all declared the examples ms owens used to be insufficient
now, the president of the supreme court, lady hale, said she found this “very troubling”, and another judge said he was very reluctant to give this judgement, and my thoughts on that are….. eh
unlike the usa, judicial activism is generally a no-no, and so both the appeals court and the supreme court have said parliament would need to amend the 1973 matrimonal causes act, which laid out the grounds for modern divorces
which really needs to happen as the last time divorce law was updated was in 2004, when the government mandated that if a transgender person was to legally transition, they needed to divorce their partner before they were allowed to. which is its’ own entire bullshit, tbh, and has been repeatedly brought up as an example of how shitty the uk is wrt transgender rights
so yeah…. i’m pretty sure a campaign is going to start because of this case and the supreme court’s ruling, and i’d really appreciate it if non-uk people would raise awareness of this gigantic goddamn issue in our country
She should just declare herself the head of the Church in England and grant herself a divorce oh wait that only works for men
Unhappy marriage not grounds for divorce, supreme court rules
funeral-biscuit 