Mumbai, Feb 25 (TIWN) While ruling that a wife's refusal to make tea for her husband would not amount to a grave and sudden provocation for killing her, the Bombay High Court sharply observed that a wife is not the husband's property required to all the household work.

In an order passed earlier this month, Justice Revati Mohite Dere said, "A wife is not a chattel or an object. Marriage ideally is a partnership based on equality. More often than not, it is far from that. Cases such as these, are not uncommon. Such cases, reflect the imbalance of gender -- skewed patriarchy, the socio-cultural milieu one has grown up in, which often seeps into a marital relationship."