‘Virtual sex, tech-driven infidelity’ triggering new-age divorces

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 11

Virtual sex and technology-driven infidelity are emerging as principal triggers for new age divorces with couples getting increasingly impatient in relationships and choosing divorce as the first resort.

A tell-all book by a senior family judge with over seven years of experience in handling matrimonial matters reveals a range of human emotions while analysing reasons for the modern day wave of separations.

“Seven years ago when I started hearing family matters, divorce was considered the last resort. Today, it is the first. Couples have no will to make things work. Marriages are breaking in record time, from seven months to a year. Technology is the new culprit with couples finding it easy to cheat on partners. Social media tools in use today give infidels a sense of anonymity. Because everything happens in the virtual space, deserters have no sense of guilt,” says Poonam Bamba, Principal Judge, Family Court, Saket, whose book “Temple of Justice: A School of Life” delves deep into causes of separation.

A universal publication, this first-of-its-kind book based on real life court battles for divorces bares the ills of modern technology cautioning partners against virtual infidelity which amounts to adultery in the eyes of law.

The book mentions a case where a merchant navy officer filed for divorce after finding his wife indulging in virtual sex with his friend based in London. “Normally, one would assume such dalliances would be hard to prove in courts. But in this case, the husband fitted the wife’s laptop with a key logger, a kind of spying device which would transmit to him all her net conversations. He began suspecting the woman after she once thought her laptop had shut down while it was hibernating. When the husband switched it on, his wife’s secret act revealed itself,” said Bamba, who heard this case.

The book tracks several cases of cyber sex and sexting which led to divorces besides revealing growing emotional distance between ambitious couples as another major reason for separations. In one instance, the husband divorces his wife after she got herself artificially inseminated to have a child. “This case involved an ambitious upper middle class man who had no time for a child and whose lonely wife was desperate for motherhood. After four years of issueless marriage, the wife went on to get herself artificially inseminated and became pregnant. The coupled filed for divorce,” Bamba said.

She dwells on net addiction at length and says sexting and virtual sex are no more mere teenage hobbies. “Technology has made it easy to flirt with strangers and engage in sexual fantasies without ever revealing your true identity. I hear net-addicted couples and feel net addiction is assuming worse proportions than drug addiction now,” the author said.

She notes the alarming rate of fast divorces and says male partners prefer to divorce wives rather than wait to make the marriage work. “The male fears cases of dowry, maintenance, domestic violence and custody, each entailing huge expenses on his family. He prefers to go for instant divorce. The room for negotiation is shrinking,” adds Bamba, who has served as a family judge in many courts of the capital.