In South Carolina divorce law, one ground for seeking a divorce is when one spouse has willfully deserted the other without just cause for a period of one year. This means the departing spouse must have left with the intention of ending the marital relationship, and without a valid legal reason for doing so. For instance, if one spouse moves out of the marital home and ceases all contact with the other spouse for at least a year, and there was no abuse, infidelity, or other compelling circumstance justifying the departure, it could potentially form the basis for a divorce action.
Establishing this ground for divorce offers a significant advantage in that it doesn’t require proving fault in the same way as adultery or physical cruelty. It simplifies the divorce process in many cases by providing a relatively straightforward path to dissolution, especially when other fault-based grounds are difficult to substantiate. Historically, this provision in law served to protect abandoned spouses from being indefinitely bound to a marriage that had effectively ended.
