Indian woman files for divorce over hubby’s 'single' Facebook status

London, May 18 (ANI): An Indian woman has filed for divorce after her husband failed to change his relationship status to married on the social networking site Facebook.

The 28-year-old has already approached the family court seeking divorce insisting that she can not trust him after he failed to announce their marriage on the website.

The Telugu couple had an arranged marriage just two months ago and the case was filed in the Aurangabad court where the woman apparently lives.

According to the Deccan Chronicle, her husband in his defence told the court that he had forgotten to update his status, the judge has given the two parties six months to undergo counselling.

"I came to know of the above incident from the magistrate in the Aurangabad court," the Daily Mail quoted Subhash, High Court advocate, as telling the Indian newspaper.The Hyderabadi husband had told the judge that he was so busy post marriage with family and his furniture business that he really had no time to check his FB or change his status.

"He was willing to do so now or even de-activate his account, however, the woman was not keen to continue with the marriage and she says her husband might be doing things behind her back and she couldn't trust him," he said.

Although there are thought to be few cases whereby the failure to change a status of a relationship has caused a breakdown Facebook is increasingly being used as a source of evidence in divorce cases, according to lawyers.

The social networking website was cited as a reason for a third of divorces last year, in which unreasonable behaviour was a factor, according to law firm Divorce-Online.

The firm said it had seen a 50 percent jump in the number of behaviour-based divorce petitions that contained the word 'Facebook' in the past two years.

"Facebook has become the primary method for communicating with friends for many people," Mark Keenan, managing director of Divorce-Online, said.

"People contact ex-partners and the messages start as innocent, but lead to trouble.

"If someone wants to have an affair or flirt with the opposite sex then it's the easiest place to do it," Keenan said.

Thirty-three percent of the 5,000 behaviour petitions filed with the firm in the past year mentioned the site.

Facebook causes problems in relationships wherein a spouse finds flirty messages, photos of their partner at a party they did not know about or with someone they should not have been with. (ANI)