Petty rows cause half of divorces

Alcohol, dowry splitting many

Money-sucking scammers, chronic alcoholics, adulterers and violent men wreck the lives of many young women here within years of their marriage. Analyses of a thousand cases reported to women police stations across the city showed urban marriages being wrecked by troubles such as adultery, alcohol consumption, extortion and dowry within very short periods.

Police officials say it’s easy to fix marital problems of under-educated couples through continuous counselling but this is a dead duck for the elite – the educated and wealthy couples.

Data showed 35 per cent of the total marital dispute cases were reported within two years of marriage, while 50 per cent of women complainants approached police after the first five year of their marriage.

Many young women suffered years of agony because of never-ending abuses from their alcoholic husbands. Data shows that close to 15 per cent of the complainants wanted to get rid of their drunk husbands, as these men wasted money by drinking regularly and turned violent at nights. Most women were concerned about their kids’ safety because of their inebriated husband’s violent nature.

Police data shows more than 30 per cent of the cases related to dowry harassment, which is an ever-growing issue.

This apart, there are also trivial issues first leading to broken marriages, and then to police cases. “There are cases of men harassing women for petty matters. We received some cases in which husbands harassed wives for silly issues like the taste of the food she cooked was not so great. Some couples who approached us could never sort out their differences in food preferences leading to quarrels even after three years of marriage,” said Janakamma Pagidipati, Inspector from Begumpet Women Police station.

“Some couples end up filing cases over food choices. For instance, a wife could be vegetarian, and she cannot adjust to the husband’s non-veg habits,” she said.