A recent headline has been blowing up on social media. The Orissa High Court ruled in a divorce case that a wife’s consistent refusal of intimacy counted as mental cruelty. The moment that line hit the internet, people split into two camps. One camp went straight into rage mode, worried that the ruling could pressure women into sex. The other camp took it as a win for men who feel ignored in long term marriages. The truth sits somewhere between those reactions, and it is a lot less dramatic than the hashtags suggest.
The case involved actor and politician Anubhav Mohanty, who had been fighting a long and public divorce battle. The court sided with him after years of conflict with his wife, and part of the reasoning included the idea that repeated denial of intimacy in a marriage can become painful, lonely and emotionally damaging. The court did not say women owe their husbands sex. It said that withholding intimacy for years without communication or effort can become cruel within the legal definition of marital breakdown.
Here is where people get confused. Intimacy is not only sex. It is physical affection, emotional warmth, shared closeness and a basic willingness to maintain a relationship. If someone shuts all of that out for years, the partner on the other side can feel rejected, unloved and mentally exhausted. The ruling focused on the pattern and the lack of communication, not on demanding physical access to someone’s body.
At the same time, the internet outrage comes from a very valid place. Many women have spent centuries fighting for the right to say no without being punished. A headline like this feels like a threat to that freedom. It triggers the fear that a woman’s boundaries will be used against her in court. But the judgment does not take away the right to say no. Consent is still the foundation. What the judgment challenges is long term neglect, silence and refusal to engage in any form of partnership.
Think of intimacy as a shared responsibility. No one should be forced into sex. No one should be guilted into touching or being touched. But both people should be able to express needs and work together to make the relationship feel alive. If one partner completely withdraws and refuses to discuss why, it does create mental distress for the other person. The legal system recognises that emotional abandonment can break a marriage just as much as infidelity or verbal abuse.
There is a bigger conversation hiding under all this noise. Most couples never learn how to talk about intimacy. They assume desire will magically stay the same forever. They ignore emotional distance until it becomes normal. They wait for the other person to fix things. By the time anyone realises how disconnected they feel, the relationship has already reached a point of resentment. Courts only see the final stage, not the years of slow erosion.
This moment also exposes how poorly we handle sex education and communication in Indian marriages. People are scared to talk honestly about libido dips, trauma, medical issues, hormonal changes or emotional needs. Many women feel pressure to perform intimacy even when nothing feels right. Many men feel ashamed to admit emotional hurt when their partner pulls away. The silence becomes the monster. And courts end up interpreting the aftermath instead of the root cause.
The ruling does not mean every refusal is cruelty. It does not mean someone cannot say no because they are tired, stressed or unwell. It does not mean a relationship becomes punishable just because one person has lower libido. What the ruling says is simple. If a person consistently blocks intimacy without explanation, without effort, without communication and without seeking support, then the relationship is no longer functioning. At that point the court is allowed to acknowledge the emotional damage caused.
This case has become a mirror. It shows how afraid people are of conversations about sex and emotional closeness. It shows how deeply we need better relationship education. And it shows how courts end up carrying the weight of the conversations couples refuse to have.
So did the Orissa High Court call a wife’s denial of intimacy mental cruelty? Yes, but not in the way the headlines imply. The judgment is about emotional abandonment, not forced intimacy. It is a reminder that consent goes both ways. People deserve the freedom to say no. They also deserve the emotional safety of being loved, touched and acknowledged. A relationship is not built on intimacy alone, but without intimacy of some kind, it begins to fall apart piece by piece.
