JUDGMENT OF EDUSEI J.
The wife-petitioner and her respondent-husband were married on Christmas day in 1966 at the Anglican Christ Church at Cape Coast. The evidence shows that soon after the marriage the petitioner and the respondent settled at Kumasi. There is one issue of the marriage, a girl, called Emma Barnes who was born on 20 October 1967. It does seem that the marriage of this couple was blissful and happy until May 1968, when trouble started to set in to destroy the wedding vow taken before the alter of God where the man had promised the wife to comfort her and, forsaking all others, to keep to her only so long as both of them shall live. On or about 18 May 1968, the petitioner returned from Cape Coast where she had given birth to their daughter only to be told by the respondent that she must pack up her belongings and leave the matrimonial home because he was married to another woman. Though this second wife was not in the matrimonial home there was a photograph of the respondent and this second wife displayed in the living-room of the matrimonial home and, in my view, this was sufficient to break the heart of any wife. This photograph further demonstrated that the respondent really meant what he said, i.e. that he was having an affair with that other woman. Be that as it may, the petitioner refused to leave the matrimonial home, whereupon the respondent threw her belongings out and beat her up. The petitioner went and reported the matter to the Rev. Canon Ahmoah who came to settle the differences between the petitioner and her husband. As soon as the Rev. Canon Ahmoah had left, the petitioner was subjected to further beatings and her personal belongings were again thrown out by the respondent. This was too much for any woman to bear and so she left the matrimonial home for Cape Coast and she has stayed away from the respondent ever since.
I am satisfied on the evidence that the physical acts of the respondent, beating up his wife, throwing out her belongings and displaying a photograph of the respondent and the other woman in the living-room of the matrimonial home were matters that constituted cruelty in the circumstances, for it has been held that a course of conduct when looked at as a whole does constitute cruelty although no act by itself amounts to cruelty: see Jamieson v. Jamieson [1952] A.C. 525, H.L.
From the evidence it was the conduct of the respondent that forced the petitioner to leave the matrimonial home and therefore it coul
