CAN YOU FORCE YOUR SPOUSE TO LIVE WITH YOU?

Question: May a wife secure a writ of habeas corpus to compel her husband to live with her in conjugal bliss?

Answer: No. Marital rights including coverture and living in conjugal dwelling may not be enforced by the extra-ordinary writ of habeas corpus. The essential object and purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is to inquire into all manner of involuntary restraint, and to relieve a person therefrom if such restraint is illegal.

The obligation of spouses to live together under one roof is a highly personal obligation on their respective part, and this should spontaneously flow from mutual love and affection. This cannot be enforced by law or by the Courts.

In Ilusorio vs. Ilusorio and Ilusorio vs. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 139789. May 12, 2000 and G.R. No. 139808. May 12, 2000, respectively, it was pertinently held that:

With his [husband] full mental capacity coupled with the right of choice, Potenciano Ilusorio may not be the subject of visitation rights against his free choice. Otherwise, we will deprive him of his right to privacy. Needless to say, this will run against his fundamental constitutional right.m

The Court of Appeals exceeded its authority when it awarded visitation rights in a petition for habeas corpus where Erlinda never even prayed for such right. The ruling is not consistent with the finding of subject’s sanity.

When the court ordered the grant of visitation rights, it also emphasized that the same shall be enforced under penalty of contempt in case of violation or refusal to comply. Such assertion of raw, naked power is unnecessary.

The Court of Appeals missed the fact that the case did not involve the right of a parent to visit a minor child but the right of a wife to visit a husband. In case the husband refuses to see his wife for private reasons, he is at liberty to do so without threat of any penalty attached to the exercise of his right.

No court is empowered as a judicial authority to compel a husband to live with his wife. Coverture cannot be enforced by compulsion of a writ of habeas corpus carried out by sheriffs or by any other means and process. That is a matter beyond judicial authority and is best left to the man and woman’s free choice.

Needless to say, this ruling equally applies for a wife who voluntarily decides not live with her husband for purely personal reasons.