3 Review(s)

The Search for a more rational divorce law in keeping with the altered socio-economic conditions in contemporary society has constantly agitated the minds of social scientists and reformers. For more than a century the divorce law in Christian Europe as also in other parts of the world following Common Law traditions was entrenched in religious moorings. The showing of the fault or guilt of one of the spouses before divorce could be authorized, has been the basis. But soon it was realised that the real causes for divorce were not necessarily the grounds which the law provided. The growing awareness among the people about the irrationality and hypocrisy of the divorce law based on the doctrine of matrimonial guilt gave rise to liberalisation and reforms in this branch of the law. Many countries around the world have now accepted the breakdown of marriage as a standard of marital dissolution. In India too the breakdown theory is round the corner. The author mirrors the legal development in Anglo-American society and makes a strong case for reforms in the divorce law in India. In the words of former Justice V.R. Krishna layer: Dr. Hussain's contribution marked by well-arranged case-law, well-planned structure and well-argued thesis, is a welcome addition to the not so-plentiful literature on comparative matrimonial law and provides inter continental raw material for social scientist s to advance to cause of secular family law and strikes a forward looking not. About the Author Dr. S. Jaffer Hussain is Reader in the Faulty of Law, Delhi University, Delhi. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in law from the University of Madras and his Master's from Osmania University, Hyderabad. In addition he obtained his LL.M. and S.J.D. (doctoral degree) from the School of Law, Harvard University, U.S.A. while he was there as a Fulbright scholar. Several of his research papers mainly on family law have appeared in journals in India and abroad and he has participated in national and international seminars and conferences. A Fellow of the institute of Advanced Legal Studies in the University of London, he has also been Associate Professor (1980-81) in the School of Law, University of Zambia, Lusaka. While at Lusaka, Dr. Hussain was for sometime Consultant at the United Nations Institute for Namibia.