Belden v. Belden

• Decision Date: 17 December 1909
• Citation: 82 Conn. 611,74 A. 896
• Parties: BELDEN v. BELDEN.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

74 A. 896

82 Conn. 611

BELDEN

v. BELDEN.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Dec. 17, 1909.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; George W. Wheeler, Judge.

Action by Alida Belden against Charles G. Belden. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Stiles Judson and Theodore E. Rogers, for appellant. William Kennedy, for appellee.

PRENTICE, J. The facts found establish beyond question that this plaintiff wife is, and since the commencement of the action has been, poor and unable to support herself. Do they also establish that the defendant, her husband, has neglected to provide for her support within the intent and meaning of section 2499 of the General Statutes of 1902, as amended by chapter 22, p. 599, Pub. Acts 1907, under which the action is brought? This question and another as to whether or not the amount of the allowance made was justified by the statute are the two substantial questions presented by the appeal.

The defendant asserts that he has always been willing to provide for and support his wife at his home, that he is now willing to do so, and that her failure to enjoy this provision and support has resulted and now results from her own fault, in that she has been and is unwilling to remain a member of the household which he maintains. The record discloses that during the latter portion of the time when she continued to be a part of that household there was such disregard of her necessities, and that she was subjected to such indignities, humiliating treatment, and personal abuse that her life there was rendered unendurable. The story in its details is one which offends against all the decencies and proprieties of life between man and wife, and involves not only privation and physical hardship, but such offendiugs against that which a true woman holds most dear that no such woman could reasonably be asked to endure them. A proffer of support under such conditions is not one which the law countenances or recognizes. Condon v. Pomroy-Grace, 73 Conn. 607, 48 Atl. 750, 53 L. R. A. 600, presented a case involving the duty of a child to support her parent wherein conditions analagous in some ways to those in this case were under review as to their bearing upon the matter of support. It was contended on behalf of the defendant in that case that a willingness on her part to furnish a support for the mother in the daughter's home which should be suitable and satisfactory as far as the mother's physical comfort and material surroundings were concerned was sufficient to defeat proceedings under the statute. We said that this contention was not sound; that, while the willingness of the daughter to provide for the mother in the daughter's home might have a bearing upon the determination of the latter's neglect within the meaning of the statute, it was...