Moore v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 12 April 1927
• Docket Number: 12188.
• Citation: 137 S.E. 697,139 S.C. 393
• Parties: MOORE v. ROBINSON et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

137 S.E. 697

139 S.C. 393

MOORE v. ROBINSON et al.

No. 12188.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

April 12, 1927

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Greenville County; M. M Mann, Judge.

Action by Mary Jane Moore against A. D. Robinson and another. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

The decree of the circuit judge, affirmed on appeal, is as follows:

"Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant has moved for a nonsuit or a directed verdict upon the grounds, substantially, that the evidence shows that, during the lifetime of Green Moore, the plaintiff married one Ira Williams, and that a separation with Green Moore was willingly made, and that she made no efforts to get him to come back or for a reconciliation. That is substantially the ground.

After having heard the argument of counsel, in your absence and after having fully considered the testimony before you, I feel compelled under the law and the evidence to hold that the plaintiff willingly separated and left her husband; and that by reason of her subsequent conduct, living with and intermarrying with another man during the lifetime of her husband, she forfeited her right of dower and consequently her distributive share of his estate.

When two people marry, they assume the marriage vows under the laws of South Carolina. The law, as I understand it imposes a mutual obligation upon the contracting parties to the marriage, that each must reasonably do that which is necessary to get along and live together. It doesn't impose all the obligation on the one party and no obligation on the other. I think it is nothing but a reasonable interpretation of the law to assume that in all households certain differences may arise from various causes. The law doesn't expect everybody to get along absolutely perfectly and have no dissension; otherwise, there would be no continuous marriages on earth if the rule of perfect conduct was to be established. The law doesn't contemplate that the one or the other may be so bitterly disagreeable and make life so miserable that the one or the other may have to leave; and, in a case of that kind, if a man makes life so disagreeable, why the wife, whom he has agreed under the law to support and to make comfortable, if he makes conditions so intolerable that she, as a reasonable person, cannot live in his house or under his roof, then she would have a right to go away. That would be a virtual banishment from the household, and she would not forfeit her rights of dower and consequently her rights in his estate but the testimony, as I see it here, is these parties were living together as man and wife, and that she and the mother-in-law were not congenial, which caused her to go away, as she stated, by permission, and live away from his household and from under his roof; and, also, impliedly, if not positively, she relinquished her right

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