A wife who leaves her husband's home for purposes of unchastity and persists in following a vicious course of life is not entitled to separate maintenance.

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 justifiable cause her husband failed and neglected to maintain her and in February 1949 he married a second wife and that therefore she has filed this suit for the above reliefs.

3. On the other hand, the case for the first defendant husband is that even in the first period when the plaintiff was living with him she proved troublesome and a termagant wife, that she left for her parents house in 1937 and did not return back to him, that she had become immoral and her carryings on constituted an open scandal, that in accordance with the practice in those parts scandalmongers pasted wall-posters proclaiming the conduct of the wife and the shame of the husband, that he left for foreign parts on that ground, that during his absence his wife was leading an immoral life by living in terms of illicit intimacy with D. W. 1 Veerappa Chettiar of Puduvayal openly, that this brazen illicit intimacy is shown by the letters Exs. B-1 to B-9 and the photo Ex. B-10 and the admissions in plaintiffs cross-examination showing her close movements with D. W. 1 like giving her watch to him for repairs and not getting it back, the commotion created by her sudden unaccompanied visit to Puduvayal, Veerappa Chettiars place, etc. Then in regard to what happened after the return of the husband in 1946, we nave the evidence of the first defendant examined as D. W. 2, that she had started intimacy with one Thyagarajan, her family native physicians son, one Chinniah Asari, a goldsmith who keeps his smithy in the shed next to her house with one Balakrishnan Servai of Vennavalkudi and one Appuraman Chettiar between 1946 and 1947. D. W. 2 is corroborated by D. W. 3 who says that he has seen the plaintiff moving in a manner inconsistent with the decent manners of a wife with Appuraman Chettiar. The learned Subordinate Judge who saw P. W. 1 in the box states :

"I may state that from the manner and method of her answers in the witness box and from her gestures and gesticulations while answering questions she appears to be a person fit for the stage or the screen and not for family life as per the opinion of D. W. 3 which he is stated to have communicated to D. W. 2, also."

4. On this evidence the learned Subordinate Judge came to the conclusion that the evidence regarding the immorality of this plaintiff for the first period between 1937 and 1941 is vague, that the evidence for the period between 1941 and 1946 has established beyond reasonable doubt the immorality of the plaintiff with Veerappa Chettiar D. W. 1 and to which D. W. 1 speaks and which is corroborated by other evidence as it should be and that the evidence regarding the third period after 1946 is vague and that in view of his finding that the plaintiff had been leading a life of immorality during the years 1941 to 1946 after her h