Voluntary Abandonment Law and Legal Definition
In family law, voluntary abandonment is a ground for divorce. The elements of voluntary abandonment are :
there must be a final separation:
without the consent of the other spouse;
without sufficient reason; and
without intention to return.
In the law of adoption, voluntary abandonment means a natural parent’s conscious disregard of a child as if they are not the parent of that child.
In Nelson v. Nelson, 244 Ala. 421 (Ala. 1943) the court observed that "to constitute 'voluntary abandonment' as ground for divorce within statute, there must be a final departure, without consent of other party, without sufficient reason and without intent to return, but all these facts need not be set out in bill for divorce."
