Robbins v. Robbins
| Decision Date | 09 January 1886 |
| Parties | ROBBINS v. ROBBINS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Libel for divorce, on the ground of adultery. Hearing before HOLMES, J., who found that the libellee was guilty of adultery on a certain day; and upon the question of the libelant's connivance found the following facts:
On the day before the adultery was committed, the libelant, having begun to suspect his wife in connection with a man, then a lodger in his house, requested his son to telegraph him to come to Boston the next day if he did not come to town in the morning. The next day the telegram arrived. The libelant informed the libellee of its arrival, and said that he must go to Boston; that he should probably not return that night; and that, if he did, he should not return until late. In fact, he made arrangements to go to his house about half past 8 o'clock that evening. By reason of the libelant's necessary visits to Boston, and otherwise frequent opportunities for adultery existed, but this particular one would not have happened except for the scheme as stated. The usual hour for going to bed was about 9 o'clock. Between half past 8 and 9 o'clock the libelant drove with a witness to his house, as he had arranged, arrived before the lights down stairs were put out and waited outside to see what happened. At about 9 o'clock the lights down stairs were put out. Shortly after, that in the libellee's room was extinguished, and from what was seen in the lodger's room, the libelant was led to suppose that the libellee had entered it. The libelant at once entered the house secretly with the witness, went up stairs, and found the libellee and the lodger in bed. The conduct of the libelant constituted a scheme to detect the libellee if she was guilty; but there was no corrupt intent that adultery should be committed, or any assent to or connivance at it, unless the foregoing conduct amount to connivance as matter of law.
The presiding judge ruled that it did not, and ordered a decree of divorce to be entered. At the request of the libellee the case was reported for the determination of the full court.
Marshall & Hamblet, for libelant.
C Cowley, for libellee.
The justice who heard the case found as a fact that the conduct of the libelant described in the report "constituted a scheme to detect the libellee if she was guilty; but that there was no corrupt intent that adultery should be committed, or any assent to or connivance at it, unless the foregoing conduct amounted to connivance as a matter of law, which I ruled it did not." It is not found by whom the man who lodged in the house was invited to lodge there, or whether he was of good reputation, or that he was introduced by the husband to the wife, or that lodging there under the circumstances made him a member of the family, or what the conduct of the wife with him was which excited the suspicions of the husband; and it is impossible to hold that, on the facts found, it was so far the duty of the husband to expel the lodger that, by not doing this, he must be held, as matter of law, to have connived at the adultery.
This court has assumed that the legislature, in conferring upon it jurisdiction to grant divorces from the bonds of matrimony although the statutes make no provision respecting connivance, collusion, condonation, or recrimination, intended to adopt the general principles which had governed the ecclesiastical courts of England in granting divorces from bed and board, so far as these principles were applicable and were found to be reasonable. Although the procedure may be "according to the course of proceeding in ecclesiastical courts," (Pub.St. c. 146, § 33,) yet it is not clear that the decisions of those courts upon questions of substantive law are of the same weight here as are the decisions of the English courts of law and chancery. One reason is that the ecclesiastical courts proceeded...
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