JUDGMENT :- This appeal is preferred against the decree and judgment of the learned Subordinate Judge of Pudukottai in O. S. No. 215 of 1949.

2. The plaintiff Deivanai Achi who sues for separate maintenance, past and future, against her husband Kasiviswanathan Chettiar impleaded as the first defendant and his brother Annamalai Chettiar, impleaded as the second defendant in the suit, was married to the first defendant on 8-7-1935; see the marriage invitation Ex. A-16. There is no dispute that this couple lived in accordance with the Nattukottai Chetty custom in separate quarters in the family house of the defendants between 1935 and 1937. Between 1937 and 1941 when the first defendant was in Arimalam the plaintiff wife does not seem to have lived with her husband. Then in 1941 the first defendant left for Malaya and returned to India in 1946 and the plaintiff lived only in Arimalam.

Then after the first defendants return from foreign parts in 1946 till the date of the institution of the suit the husband and wife have been living apart. It is the case for the wife that she has been throughout faithful to her husband and was always willing to reside with him but that without ju