4.2 Grounds for Divorce (the Civil Code, 2074)

The Code's grounds — available equally to husband and wife (the great correction): Fault grounds (either spouse may petition): Cruelty — physical or mental torture, conduct endangering life or health; Desertion/abandonment — driving the spouse from the home or refusing to maintain without cause; Adultery-era conduct — extramarital sexual relations (the criminal adultery provision's fall in 2021 did not abolish the civil ground); Physical incapacitation — impotence or incurable disease making conjugal life impossible (with the statutory waiting/confirmation rules); Failure to maintain / separate residence without cause — the spouse living separately for the statutory period without the other's consent (the separation-ground family; the Kiran Rana v. Puran Shamsher J.B.R. line — Unit 11 — refining when separation justifies divorce); The conviction ground — the spouse's conviction and imprisonment for the statutory term. Breakdown elements recognized: continuous separation for the statutory period (three years' continuous separate living without consent, in the Code's design) as itself a ground — Nepal's partial adoption of breakdown theory. Non-fault termination: the marriage also ends by death (and by the declared-death rules for the missing spouse — the "no news for twelve years" declaration line of the General Code).