FA Chua J:

The petitioner, Joseph Wong Phui Lun, presented a petition for divorce to this Court praying that his marriage to the respondent, Yeoh Loon Goit alias Yoa Hsiao Yu, may be dissolved under s. 82(1)(e) of the Women's Charter (Cap. 47, 1970 Edn.) on the ground that his wife has lived separately from him for a period of not less than seven years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition and is unlikely to be reconciled with him.

The parties were married on 24 December 1952, at the Registry of Marriages, Selangor, according to the provisions of the Civil Marriage Ordinance 1952, a law providing that or in contemplation of which this marriage is monogamous. At the date of the marriage the petitioner was a bachelor and the respondent a widow. Both the parties were born in Kuala Lumpur. There are six children of the marriage.

After the marriage the parties lived in Kuala Lumpur. About nine months after the marriage the petitioner left for England where he studied at Leeds University. Nine months later, after the birth of the first child, his wife joined him at Leeds. When he finished his university course in 1956 they moved and lived in London where he