The Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939 established the legal grounds on which Muslim women in British India could obtain a judicial divorce without their husband's consent.
Section 2 permits a woman to seek divorce on nine grounds:
1. Her husband's whereabouts have been unknown for four years.
2. He has failed to provide maintenance for two years.
3. He has been sentenced to imprisonment for at least seven years.
4. He has failed to fulfill his marital obligations for three years without reasonable cause.
5. He was impotent at marriage and remains so.
6. He has been mentally ill for two years or suffers from a serious venereal disease.
7. She was married before age fifteen and repudiates the unconsummated marriage before eighteen.
8. He treats her cruelly, including through physical or psychological abuse, interference with her property or religious practice, or unequal treatment in a polygamous marriage.
9. Any other ground recognized under Muslim law.
Sections 3–5 provide additional rules.
Section 3: When a husband has disappeared, his prospective heirs must be notified of the divorce proceedings.
Section 4: A Muslim woman's renunciation of Islam or conversion to another religion does not automatically dissolve her marriage, subject to an exception for women returning to their former religion.
Section 5: Divorce under the Act does not extinguish a woman's existing rights to her mahr (dower).
Significance: The Act expanded Muslim women's ability to obtain divorce by codifying grounds for judicial dissolution, drawing partly on more permissive interpretations within Islamic jurisprudence. It also eliminated religious conversion as a general means of automatically terminating marriage, directing women toward judicial remedies instead.