A.A. v. B.B., Supreme Court of The Bahamas (2022)

The petitioner filed for divorce from her husband (the respondent), alleging that he treated her with cruelty. She specifically claimed that he had subjected her to mental and emotional abuse and forced her to have sexual intercourse on multiple occasions, even if she refused. The Matrimonial Causes Act recognizes the specific reasons for which a husband or wife may petition for divorce, including adultery, mental or physical cruelty, desertion, living separate and apart, and acts such as same-sex relations and sodomy. In this case, the Supreme Court emphasized that rape is not a cause for the dissolution of a marriage, as Section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act defines rape as nonconsensual sexual intercourse with a person who is not the offender’s spouse. Section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act, on sexual assault by spouse, only covers limited circumstances of sexual assault by a spouse. The Court still found that while marital sex is a right under Bahamian law, the manner in which the husband exercised this right caused mental harm to the petitioner, which met the standard of cruelty under Section 16(1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act The Court granted the woman a divorce.

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