What is meant by cruelty in a divorce action?
Cruelty, both mental and physical, is a traditional fault. Often the cruelty was mental, which is a catchall term that often meant that one spouse verbally and psychologically abused the other. In some jurisdictions, cruelty is called extreme cruelty or cruel and inhuman treatment, which can be “as innocuous and benign as a pattern of conduct resulting in repeated annoyance or just about anything that makes it unreasonable or unhealthy for the parties to continue to cohabit as spouses.” In many jurisdictions, court interpretations of the meaning of this legal phrase have been so diluted that it functions as “irreconcilable differences” in no-fault states. In general, cruelty doesn’t mean just being mean, nasty or disagreeable to one another, but rather that unnecessary physical or emotional pain is being gratuitously inflicted by one spouse upon the other. Thus, Bessy Smith’s classic blues song “Mean to Me,” a lamentation of the sorrows of a loving women trapped in a bad relationship w
