McLanahan v. McLanahan

• Decision Date: 03 February 1900
• Citation: 56 S.W. 858,104 Tenn. 217
• Parties: McLANAHAN v. McLANAHAN.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

56 S.W. 858

104 Tenn. 217

McLANAHAN v. McLANAHAN.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

February 3, 1900

Appeal from chancery court, Williamson county; H. H. Cook Chancellor.

Suit by M. O. McLanahan against W. B. McLanahan. From a decree of the chancery court of appeals reversing a decree for complainant she appeals. Reversed.

E. H East, Bell & Garner, and Hearn & McCorkle, for appellant.

Pitts & Meeks and Fowlkes & Henderson, for appellee.

BEARD J.

The original bill in this cause was filed by Mrs. McLanahan praying a decree for divorce from her husband upon the ground of such cruel and inhuman treatment as to make it unsafe and improper for her to cohabit with him. The defendant answered the bill, denying its allegations of cruelty, except as to a specific act, which he admitted, but averred that it was provoked by complainant, and was afterwards forgiven by her. Subsequently the defendant filed a cross bill, in which he charged complainant with adultery in 1888, and again in 1897. This was answered by the cross defendant with an indignant denial of all its averments. Upon these pleadings an immense record, consisting of about 2,400 typewritten pages, has been made up. We are saved, under the statute, the necessity of going through the evidence in the cause, save as it is embraced in the opinion of the court of chancery appeals. That court finds that these parties were married in 1882; that at the time of the marriage the complainant was the owner in fee of a small tract of 130 acres of land, and in remainder of a 700-acre tract, the life estate in which fell in in 1894; that of personalty the wife brought to the marriage about $1,500 or $2,000, and the husband about $2,500; that some time after the marriage the defendant gave up his vocation as a traveling salesman, and devoted himself to the management of his wife's real property, in which he had met with reasonable success, having from time to time improved it in a valuable way, and all the time having furnished his family with a comfortable home. The opinion of that court also discloses, notwithstanding these evidences of material prosperity, that discord, extending over many years of their married life, and up to their final separation, apparently intensifying with the increase of time, existed between the two. Quarrels originating generally with regard to the property, or rather his management of it, frequently took place. In these she often applied epithets to him stinging in their nature, and, as coming from a woman, sometimes coarse, and he would reply always with usurious interest, characterizing her with foul and indecent names, and charging her with infidelity to her marriage vows. It is apparent that complainant was possessed with the idea that her husband was mismanaging or misapplying the estate which she chiefly brought to the family. She often and bitterly complained of this to him. But it is also true that on these occasions his resistance to her complaints rapidly passed into recrimination which far exceeded the offense, and was as gross as it was unmanly. It is reported by the court of chancery appeals that the "husband and wife both prove excellent characters for truth and veracity; that the wife's character in all respects as a cultivated and refined lady is sustained by a number of witnesses; that the weight of the proof is, however, that she is a lady of high temper, and this her own evidence demonstrates." It may with entire confidence be added, upon the finding of facts by that court, that it is equally clear that the husband's temper was high, and in indulging it he often passed beyond the limit of decency, and became, in his turn, a violent and obscene assailant of the virtue of the mother of his children.

This much in the way of the general facts. Now, as to specific acts found by that court. After making certain general observations as "affording a standpoint from which to view the case," the court then proceeds, to use the language of the opinion, "to state the following facts established by the evidence." These findings are then classified, and are embraced in paragraphs which number from 1 to 15. Many of these findings of facts have already been summarized by us; others, bearing in an important degree on this unfortunate controversy, will now be given in the words of the court, or in paraphrases that will not affect their meaning.

"(12) In December, 1896, he inflicted physical violence upon her by jerking her by her hair out of a chair on the floor while she had her baby in her lap, and in doing so pulled out some of her hair. He admits that he jerked her out of the chair by her hair while she held her babe, and upon the floor, but he denies that he pulled out any of her hair. He did on this occasion pull out some of her hair, but not so much as was claimed; but the quantity pulled out was immaterial, save as illustrating the ferocity of the assault. As soon as she escaped, she went upstairs, and had herself locked in the room of Miss Lulu Swaree. He soon followed. He was admitted on a promise to offer no more violence. She and Miss Swaree and a negro girl (nurse) say, in substance, that after he got in the room he called his wife a -- (foul name not here repeated), and told her if he could have got a poker he would have killed her with it. He denies this, and says, on the contrary, that he begged her pardon, told her he had disgraced himself and the children, and that he did it under an impulse of anger caused by her charging him with stealing some money. She says she gave him no provocation for the assault. *** After this she cohabited with him and submitted to his conjugal embraces." Again that court says: "She charges that in September, 1897, she and two of her boys came to Nashville, and were after dark getting home, and that he, before her return, in the presence of Miss Swaree and her little girl, called her all sorts of vile names, and said that she went to a bawdy house in Nashville, and left her children asleep in the vehicle in the livery stable, and became so violent that Miss Swaree had to order him out of her room; that when she got home one of her little girls told her about what her father said; *** that he, in effect, admitted it, and charged her with infidelity in Nashville. He bitterly denies this charge, and says that all he said, in substance, was that it was improper to remain out so late; that it would cause gossip or talk. While it is quite probable," adds that court, "that what was said by him on this occasion is considerably colored or exaggerated, the weight of the proof does establish *** that he suggested that she was not what she ought to be as a wife." Again says the court: "She introduces proof to show that he accused her with being too intimate with a negro man hired on the place, and says herself that he accused her of it. She also introduces proof to show, and says herself, that a child given birth to prematurely by her in a miscarriage was charged by him to be the product of sexual intercourse *** with a negro. *** He denies these charges in toto and in detail. She continued to live and cohabit with him after these charges." In other words, the court finds that he made this terribly offensive charge, but clearly implies that subsequent cohabitation by the wife with her husband was a condonation of the offense. It is true that, in answer to the petition for a further finding of facts, that court says that it has some doubt about this charge, but it does not recede from its original finding.

"(13) The husband was guilty several times, with one or more women, of adultery after the marriage. He admits it, but says he told his wife about it, begged her forgiveness, received it, and promised to abstain in the future, and that she condoned these offenses. She says that she caught him in improper relations with a woman on the place, and that he told her it was no use to try to get a divorce, because she could not prove it; that he and the woman would deny it, and that there would be two against one. ***"

Whatever may have produced their differences, whether property or something else, it is surely not remarkable that when confessed adultery is added to contumelious epithets showered upon her, to his violent assault involving her babe as well as herself, to the charge as to her infidelity in Nashville, and to his yet more loathsome charge of lechery with a negro, with ungovernable rage she should from time to time have broken out into fierce denunciations. Any one of these grievances was sufficient to arouse anger in the meekest of women, but all were sufficient to convert this wife into a demon. That any refinement should have remained to her after her long association with such a husband causes profound astonishment.

That court, in these...