Ringgold v. Ringgold

• Decision Date: 18 November 1920
• Citation: 104 S.E. 836
• Parties: RINGGOLD. v. RINGGOLD.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

104 S.E. 836

RINGGOLD.

v.RINGGOLD.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Nov. 18, 1920.

Appeal from Circuit Court; Rockingham County.

Suit for divorce by Marjorie Ringgold against Herschel Ringgold. From a decree granting insufficient relief, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and rendered.

Geo. Conrad, of Harrisonburg, for appellant.

KELLY, P. This is a suit for divorce, and for counsel fees and alimony, brought by Marjorie Ringgold against her husband, Herschel Ringgold, on the grounds of cruelty and desertion. The decree appealed from denied the divorce, but required the defendant to "pay to complainant for her support the sum of $20 a month until he is prepared and willing to provide her with suitable home with himself, separate in its housekeeping and family relations from that of his mother and sisters, * * * and the costs of this suit, and the further sum of $150 to cover the fee of her counsel."

The case, in some important respects, is unlike any to be found in the books. It is not free from difficulty in some of its strictly legal aspects, and there is room for debate as to whether the facts proved by the complainant make a case of cruelty or desertion in law. But the evidence clearly shows that the complainant is a cultured, sweet-tempered young woman of integrity and chastity, and that her husband and his family were wholly and inexcusably to blame for the separation. The defendant did not answer or offer any evidence in his own behalf, but there is not the slightest reason to suspect collusion between the parties. The learned judge of the circuit court was of opinion that her act in leaving her husband's home was not without excuse, and therefore awarded alimony and counsel fees as above set out, but, while applauding "her truly admirable conduct in the efforts she has made to overcome the extreme severity of her husband's judgment upon some indiscretion of her childhood, and to restore herself to her proper place in his affection and his home, " was of opinion that "the evidence does not make out a case either of desertion or of cruelty, as the latter term is used in the law of divorce in this state."

Marjorie Ringgold was married to Herschel Ringgold early in April, 1918, and they began their married life at the home of the husband on a farm where his mother and five unmarried sisters also resided. After the lapse of three or four weeks, the couple began a separate housekeeping arrangement in the same house, occupying two rooms, one of which was a combined kitchen and dining room, and the other a bedroom. About a month later, at the instance of the mother and sisters, this arrangement was abandoned, and the wife resumed a place at the family table.

The night before the marriage, in response to an inquiry from him as to any past relations or conduct on her part with other men, she informed him that on" one occasion a young man had laid his hand on her lap and she had repulsed him. Later on, but just when does not appear, he renewed this Inquisition, and, in a guileless and scrupulously frank and complete disclosure, she told him that several boys had put their arms around her, and that when a mere child (8 or 9 years old) she had slept with her brother, also a child, and had, ignorantly and innocently, indulged in some conduct (not sexual intercourse) with him which, after she reached womanhood and understood life, she realized was vulgar. Her standing and reputation before and after marriage are shown to have been the very best. They lived happily as man and wife for more than a month. Just why he should have made these inquiries, unless because of a prudish and suspicious disposition, is not easy to understand. At any rate, it must be especially noted that what he elicited from her at this rather remarkable confessional fell short of involving her chastity, and, further, that his subsequent mistreatment of her was based entirely upon the childhood incident mentioned above. The written opinion of the lower court, referring to the cause of the breach between the parties, says:

"The unhappiness of this couple seems to be wholly due to the puritanical severity of her husband in relation to some act of indiscretion on the part of the complainant committed before her marriage, and apparently when she was still a child, at least she says, to use her own words, that it was before she 'reached womanhood or knew about life, ' an attitude in which he is supported by his mother and sisters."

This statement is fully supported by the record, and we have therefore only to consider whether this puritanical severity can be justified, and, if not, whether it was indulged in to such an extent and in such a manner as to amount in law to cruelty, or desertion, or both.

Ringgold seems to have brooded over what his wife told him about sleeping with her brother. Something like six weeks after the marriage, and for no other assigned reason than that incident, he became cold and indifferent towards her, and finally, in June, 1918, left her room and bed, and declined tolive with her as man and wife. She was permitted to occupy a room in the house and to take her meals with the family, but under such circumstances of ostracism and disrespect as simply made her life in the home intolerable.

About that time he became seriously ill. She was greatly concerned about him, and wanted to wait on and minister to him, but was not allowed to do so.

After he was up and at work, she on one occasion left the. house and reported to him a certain wholly indefensible and offensive act on the part of one of his sisters, and got this reply:

"You go back to the house, and if you can't live there with my people, why you can go away."

At another time he stated to her father that he held his mother and sisters in higher regard than his wife. His family circulated discreditable stories in the neighborhood about her, which he knew were unjust and untrue, but he declined to remonstrate with or restrain them.

These are but instances of a course of conduct towards her in which he persistently and relentlessly indulged, and in which he and his mother and sisters plainly conspired to humiliate her and make her life miserable. As stated in the opinion of the lower court:

"The indignities and neglect that attended the daily life of this young wife were such as to make her life in her mother-in-law's home intolerable to one of her refined sensibilities, and to make her excusable for leaving that home."

It seems that the defendant considered himself a very pious man. In the exercise of what he appears to have regarded as an exalted righteousness, he broke off matrimonial cohabitation with his wife, and, in the face of the most earnest and appealing efforts and overtures on her part, declined to give her any reasonable or definite reply to her inquiries as to how or what she should do to reinstate herself in his favor. All that he would say was that, when she lived out of her life the sins of her childhood, he would take her back. That he had abandoned her as his wife and did not intend to again recognize her as such, except in the remote future and upon unreasonable conditions, is indisputably established by admissions made by him to friends of both parties who have given entirely disinterested and convincing testimony in the case.

The complainant had taught school before she was married. Late in the fall of 1918 she was solicited by the trustees and patrons to become the principal of a school in the neighborhood, about three miles from the Ringgold home. She was then, and had been for five or six months, living in a state of isolation and misery, forced to occupy a room separate from her husband, and to take her meals at the family table, where she was accorded the coldest and most intolerable treatment. She asked her husband, "Do you want me to take the school, or are you going to arrange things here so I can have something to do and keep house?" His reply was, "You do as you please about that, " and said he would let her keep house "when everything was straightened up, " which meant, in the light of the other evidence in the case, that when in the course of a long period of years she had been sufficiently humiliated and punished to satisfy his whimsical and distorted ideas, she might hope for a restoration of her place as a wife in his heart and home.

She accepted the school, and taught there until the end of the term in the following April, but for some time she returned to his home for each week-end. During this time he did not voluntarily write to or communicate with her a single time, and, when she suggested that she might telephone him from the school sometimes, he replied, "Don't call me unless you want something." While there, on February 27, 1919, she wrote asking him if he would not arrange for them to keep house together, "she didn't care where, " and he replied as follows:

"Dear Marjorie: Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Gal. 6—7. May the Spirit of Truth guide us into all truth that we may stand approved of God, and not of men. May God bless and keep you always.

"Herschel."

The malediction, as well as the benediction, contained in the foregoing letter can be better understood and appraised in the light of what had quite recently preceded it. Ringgold and his wife were members of the Brethren Church. At her Instance, in January, 1919, there was an informal hearing of their differences before two ministers of the church. At that meeting he was cruelly unresponsive to all appeals from her and from others present. She, on-the contrary, did more than could reasonably have been expected or required of her in an effort to reconcile him. She literally begged him on her knees to relent. She put her arms around him and told him she would do "anything in the world that is possible" to regain his favor, but he repulsed her embrace and pushed her from him. The facts were fully developed at that meeting,...