Mathews v. Mathews, 33802.

• Decision Date: 06 April 1921
• Docket Number: No. 33802.,33802.
• Parties: MATHEWS v. MATHEWS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

182 N.W. 390

MATHEWS

v.MATHEWS.

No. 33802.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 6, 1921.

Appeal from District Court, Polk County; Hubert Utterback, Judge.

“Not to be officially reported.”

Action for divorce, decree for plaintiff as prayed. Defendant appeals. Modified and affirmed.W. H. McHenry and Jesse A. Miller, both of Des Moines, for appellant.

Nesbitt & Johnston, of Des Moines, for appellee.

STEVENS, J.

Plaintiff and defendant were married June 2, 1915, and lived together, except during occasional periods of separation, until April, 1919. Both had been previously married--plaintiff, who is considerably younger than the defendant, once, and the defendant three times. The ground upon which plaintiff seeks a divorce is that of cruel and inhuman treatment such as to endanger her life. The record reveals that the parties frequently disagreed, but that no violence was ever inflicted by the defendant upon the plaintiff. Plaintiff's sisters objected to her marriage to the defendant. Ray Cox, who shortly after the marriage of plaintiff and defendant married one of her sisters, also made some objection thereto. Plaintiff, according to her testimony, which is corroborated in many particulars by that of her sisters and friends, was frequently charged by her husband with being a prostitute and of having immoral relations with her brother-in-law, Cox. The defendant objected to her sisters visiting plaintiff and to plaintiff's visiting her sisters, or being in the society of Cox. Plaintiff also testified that defendant often threatened to kill her; that he would become violently angry at times in the night, and when he got up in the morning would act like a maniac, and upon one occasion commanded her to leave the house at once or he would kill her; that he wrote her a letter in which he referred to Cox as her “pimp”; that he objected to her going to lodge and other places, and complained of her being out late at night; that upon one occasion a neighbor invited plaintiff, by telephone, to come to her house, where a company was gathered to play cards, but the invitation did not include the defendant; that he immediately complained and objected to plaintiff accepting the invitation, sayingthat the discrimination was an insult to him, and on the following day wrote his wife's friend a letter, complaining about the treatment accorded to him. Plaintiff, however, attended the party, and the defendant later followed, remaining on the outside of the house and looking in at the window to see what plaintiff was doing. One of plaintiff's sisters upon another occasion paid her some rent by check, which was made payable to Mrs. Clara Mathews. The defendant complained of this, and destroyed the check because it was not made payable to Mrs. Harry E. Mathews. Defendant also told plaintiff and numerous other persons that his wife was beneath him, and that he married out of his social station. Defendant at one time ordered one of plaintiff's sisters without apparent cause to leave his home and never return. Plaintiff was operated upon in a hospital in Des Moines, her sisters and Cox frequently went to see her. Defendant objected to Cox visiting her at the hospital, and applied for and obtained an injunction restraining him from doing so. Upon another occasion, while plaintiff was visiting her mother and sister at Colfax, defendant opened her trunk and took therefrom some photographs and a number of letters which she had received from her former husband, destroying some of the letters and a photograph of her husband. Plaintiff's mother was ill for several weeks, and finally died at the home of plaintiff and defendant. Plaintiff and her sister testified that the defendant refused to accompany plaintiff and the other members of the family to Colfax to attend the funeral, and that he went on the interurban and came to the church and sat apart from the family; that he quarreled with plaintiff after her mother's death, and became very angry because it was proposed that the family attend the funeral together, and sought to keep her from going to the Cox home.

Cox died some time before the separation. Plaintiff received notice of his death by telephone in the presence of defendant. She testified that, upon being told that Cox was dead, the defendant exclaimed that he was glad of it, and got up and took a gourd from a nearby shelf and danced about the room, scraping the gourd with his thumb in imitation of one playing a stringed instrument.

[1] The defendant denies most of the incidents testified to by the plaintiff, but few of which are recited above. The evidence fairly shows that he wrote plaintiff an anonymous postal card, reflecting upon plaintiff's chastity, and placed it where she found it. This he also denies. It is clear from the record that defendant was insanely jealous of his wife, and that his hostile attitude toward plaintiff's sisters and brother-in-law was due to this trait of his character, rather than to any real wrong they did him. No evidence, however, was introduced...