He abandons the lady of the family for tease (5)
I believe the answer is:
taunt
'tease' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'he abandons the lady of the family' is the wordplay.
'abandons' is a deletion indicator.
'lady of the family' becomes 'aunt' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'the' with 'he' removed is 't'.
't'+'aunt'='TAUNT'
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for taunt that I've seen before include "Goad, provoke" , "Thing said to anger or wound" , "element of teasing" , "Provoke; tease" , "Mocking remark" .)