[1973]DLHC2338 • July 27, 1973 • High Court
OPOKU-OWUSU vs. OPOKU-OWUSU
The petitioner (husband) and respondent (wife) married in 1959 in West Germany and lived in both Germany and Ghana. They had four children. The marriage was initially happy but deteriorated after the wife took a job in 1969, leading to marital discord including refusal of sexual intercourse by the wife and alleged domineering behavior by the husband. The wife left the matrimonial home citing fear and intolerable conditions. Both parties agreed the marriage had broken down beyond reconciliation.
read moreOn 1 July 1973, I made an order dissolving the marriage between the petitioner and the respondent and reserved my reasons for making that order. I now proceed to give the reasons. The husband-petitioner herein seeks divorce on the sole ground that his marriage with the respondent has broken down beyond reconciliation in that the respondent has behaved in such a way that the petitioner cannot reasonably be expected to live with her. The petitioner asks for the custody of the four children of the marriage. In order to determine whether the conduct of one spouse has been such as to entitle the other to withdraw from cohabitation the circumstances surrounding the conduct and the whole history of the marriage must be considered. The petitioner is a Ghanaian domiciled in Ghana and the respondent a German citizen domiciled in West Germany. On 18 July 1959 the petitioner, then a bachelor, married the respondent, then a spinster at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Venusberg, Bonn in W...