Indignity Law and Legal Definition
Indignity means something that humiliates, insults, or injures the dignity or self respect. Generally, indignity consist of vulgarity, disgrace, habitual ill treatment, studied neglect, intentional disrespect, abusive language, malignant ridicule, and any other plain manifestation of settled hate and estrangement. [Rhinehart v. Rhinehart, 197 Pa. Super. 558, 560 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1962)]
Indignity is a ground for divorce in some states in the U.S. Here indiginity refers to one spouse's pattern of behavior calculated to humiliate the other. An indignity to the person is an affront to the personality of another, a lack of reverence for the personality of one's spouse. [Darcy v. Darcy, 197 Pa. Super. 100, 102 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1962)]. In Gill v. Gill, 363 P.2d 86 (Wyo. 1961), it was decided by the Wyoming Supreme Court that the offense is not predicated upon a single act but consists of a persistent or continuous course of conduct which has the ultimate effect of rendering cohabitation intolerable.
Indignity is also referred to as personal indignity.
