Block v. Block
| Decision Date | 09 November 1933 |
| Citation | 168 A. 873 |
| Parties | BLOCK v. BLOCK et al. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
On motion from Superior Court, Cumber land County.
Action by Freida A. Block against Shaina Block and others. On defendants' general motion for-a new trial after verdict for plaintiff.
Motion overruled.
Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, and THAXTEH, JJ.
J. E. F. Connolly and Arthur D. Welch, both of Portland, for plaintiff.
Frank A. Tirrell, Jr., of Rockland, for de: fendants.
This aetion on the case for the alienation of the affections of the plaintiff's husband comes before this court on a general motion for a new trial. The defendants, who are respectively the mother and sisters of the husband, are sued jointly, and a verdict against them for $4,500 was given in the trial court. The action is brought under section 7 of chapter 74 of the Revised Statutes.
The plaintiff, whose maiden name was Freida Seigal and lived in Portland, Me., was married on May 24, 1931, to Myer Block of Thornaston. They and their families are Jewish people and the marriage was brought about in accordance with their customs and the tenets of their religion. They met at the instance of matchmakers, their courtship followed only after a parental conference and approval, and their engagement and wedding, attended by the customary formalities and ceremonies, were supervised and directed by their families. The parents of the young man were getting along in years and both were in poor health, and it was their desire that their son, who ran the farm on which they lived, should marry and bring back a wife to assist in the maintenance of the home. One of their daughters had married and moved away and the other, employed as a bookkeeper in a nearby city, was no longer willing, if able, to carry the burden of the housework. It cannot be doubted, when this record is read, that Myer Block was led into this marriage by the promptings and insistence of his family and, with him, it was more a matter of duty and convenience than of desire or affection for the woman who had been chosen for him. It must be assumed also that the situation was not very different with the girl. She had no acquaintance with young Block until the matchmakers brought them together, and in the following two years which passed before they were married, she saw him but a few times and then only for short periods. lie was by no means an attentive or ardent lover and it is difficult to believe that he awakened in the plaintiff any real love or affection for him. This is the situation, as portrayed by the evidence, when this couple were married, and it furnishes some explanation of their rather extraordinary subsequent experiences.
The honeymoon was spent, for the night of the wedding, at a local hotel and, for the rest of the week, in Portland at the house of the bride's mother. The plaintiff's story, as she told it to the jury, is that, finding her husband apparently normal physically, she was kissed and caressed by him in her marriage bed, and, though he protested his love and solicited intercourse and she was willing, when her consent was given, it was rejected with the explanation that he had been told by his family to wait a year. While the couple stayed in Portland, the husband continued his refusal to have intercourse, and there was no change when a few days later he took his wife to Thomaston and installed her as a member of his parents' household. She lived with him in this unusual and unnatural manner, except as she came to Portland for short visits, until the following fall when, as she says, her husband, having sent her to her mother with a promise to join her in a few days and arrange for a different home, failed to come to her, went to Massachusetts to live, and refused to allow her to again live with him. A physician whose statement cannot be questioned verifies the plaintiff's claim of virginity and the husband confirms it, asserting, however, that the fault was the woman's, that she at all times repelled his advances, even to the extent of using force, and though he sought intercourse, he was unable to overcome her resistance.
Within a week after Myer Block came to his parents' home, trouble arose in the family. It is very apparent, as is often the case in certain families, that Shaina Block, the young man's mother, ruled her household and demanded and received almost implicit obedience from the members of her immediate family. Her dominion over her son, as well as her other children, was practically complete and her word was law. This situation was not changed when the son married. The mother-in-law received the young bride into her home at first in a friendly and kindly spirit, but within a few days turned against her. The plaintiff told the jury nothing she did suited her mother-in-law, who pronounced her no good, without brains, and unfit to be a wife for the son. She says she was not allowed to join the family at their meals, but was compelled to cook her own food and eat alone. She insists that her request to her husband that they be given the use of empty rooms upstairs for an apartment was denied by Mrs. Block with the statement, "No, sir; she don't deserve any home and she can go where she belongs." She told the jury that her husband left money in his clothes for her and the mother-in-law took it and, upon the wife's protest, said, "I will try to separate Myer and you." Continuing her story, this plaintiff says that her husband's mother repeatedly in her" presence advised him to get rid of her, admonished him not to have intercourse with her, and advised that, if this continued for six months, a separation could be obtained. In short, this plaintiff's testimony is, and there is some...
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