Seilheimer v. Seilheimer

• Decision Date: 30 November 1885
• Citation: 2 A. 376,40 N.J.E. 412
• Parties: SEILHEIMER v. SEILHEIMER.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

2 A. 376

40 N.J.E. 412

SEILHEIMER

v. SEILHEIMER.

Court of Chancery of New Jeresy.

November term, 1885.

On final hearing on bill and answer, and proofs taken before a master.

Wm. E. Skinner, for complainant.

P. W Stagg and A. D. Campbell, for defendant.

VAN FLEET, V. C. The complainant seeks to have his marriage with the defendant annulled on the ground of fraud. His bill avers that he was induced to propose marriage to the defendant, and to marry her, in consequence of her representation that she was chaste, when the truth was that at the very time she made the representation she was, as she well knew, with child by another man. He also avers that he did not have sexual intercourse with the defendant until after their marriage. If the truth of these averments has been proved to the satisfaction of the court the complainant is entitled to the relief he asks, for it is an established principle of the law of marriage that a marriage may be annulled in any case where it is clearly shown that an innocent man has been fraudulently entrapped into a marriage with a woman who was, in fact, at the time of their marriage, incapable of contracting matrimony with him, because she was pregnant by another man. This court will extend its aid to a husband whose own conduct towards his wife prior to marriage has been clear, but who by fraud has been put in a position where, so long as his marriage remains in force, he must allow a bastard to bear his name, and be compelled to perform towards him the duties and obligations of a father.

But a husband, to be qualified to ask relief of this nature against the woman he has taken as his wife, must be pure himself,—pure, at least, so far as she is concerned. Carris v. Carris, 24 N. J. Eq. 516; States v. States, 37 N. J. Eq. 195; Crehore v. Crehore, 97 Mass. 330. If he has been guilty of antenuptial incontinence with her,—if, before marriage, he tempted her and she yielded,—he has no right to complain of her impurity or deception. He is just as unclean as she is. He has made himself acquainted with her weakness, and knows from personal experience that she is unchaste. If with this knowledge he voluntarily contracts matrimony with her, and it afterwards turns out that she was at the time of the marriage with child by another man, while it must be admitted his situation is a very unfortunate one, it is nevertheless obvious that he is not in a position where he has a right to make complaint against her. In point of moral purity he does not stand a whit higher than she does. He cannot be heard to accuse her, for he is a participant in her crime. He cannot say he was deceived, for he knew she was unchaste. He may say he did not know all, but he knew enough. He knew he was taking to his bed a woman who had fallen at least once, and the man who, with such knowledge, takes the woman who has yielded to him, as his wife, should be held, both on the ground of good morality and sound policy, to have accepted all the risks. Mr. Justice BEDLE, in pronouncing the opinion of the court of errors and appeals in Carris v. Carris, said, in defining what frauds would and what frauds would not be sufficient to justify a decree annulling a marriage, that a "mistake of the husband as to the paternity of a child born after marriage, but begotten before, where he himself had been guilty of criminal lewdness towards his wife before marriage," was not sufficient to entitle the husband to be relieved from the marriage bond. It may be that it would be entirely just to declare, in a case where it was shown that a pregnant woman, conscious of her condition, had lured a man into having sexual intercourse with her for the very purpose of compelling him to marry her, and thus place him in a position where he would be compelled to perform the duties of a father towards her bastard offspring, that if she succeeded her husband would be entitled to have the marriage annulled on the ground that she had enticed him to commit the wrong as the means by which she made her fraudulent purpose effectual against him. This case, however, presents no such question, and it will be quite time enough to consider whether such a doctrine shall be declared or not when a case arises which makes its consideration necessary.

These parties were married on the third of August, 1884. Their betrothal took place less than two weeks before. The complainant was 26 years of age at the time of the marriage, and the defendant 18. The defendant gave birth to a child on the eleventh of December, 1884, a period a little over four months after the marriage. The proofs show that the child was fully developed, having been born after the full...