Wales v. Wales
| Decision Date | 29 October 1875 |
| Parties | Mary E. Wales v. Atherton Wales |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Bristol. Petition to set aside a decree of divorce nisi from the bond of matrimony, rendered by a justice of this court at November term 1873, upon the default of this petitioner after notice to her, on a libel filed against her by the respondent on May 17, 1873, for the cause of utter desertion on August 15, 1872, and continued to the date of that libel.
The present petition alleged that by the St. of 1873, c. 371 which took effect June 11, 1873, it was not competent for the court to enter any decree whatever upon the libel. At the hearing before Gray, C. J., the allegations of the petition were proved, and it was ruled that the prayer thereof should be granted; and, at the request of the respondent, the question of the correctness of this ruling was reserved for the consideration of the full court, according to whose opinion a decree was to be entered accordingly, or the petition dismissed.
Petition granted.
J. Daggett, for the respondent.
E. Ames, for the petitioner, was not called upon.
The original libel was filed under the St. of 1870, c. 404, for utter desertion, which, not having continued for five years, was not a cause for a divorce from the bond of matrimony under the Gen. Sts. c. 107, § 7.
Under the St. of 1870, the court could not decree a divorce from the bond of matrimony for the cause alleged, but only a divorce nisi, which was in the nature of a divorce from bed and board, did not dissolve the marriage, and could not be made absolute except upon a new petition filed not less than three years from the time of the first decree. St. 1870, c. 404, §§ 2, 3. Graves v. Graves, 108 Mass. 314. Edgerly v. Edgerly, 112 Mass. 53.
The St. of 1873, c. 371, § 2, repealed the provision of the St. of 1870 authorizing the court to grant a divorce nisi, but authorized a divorce from the bond of matrimony to be granted for the cause of desertion continued for three consecutive years before the filing of the libel for such divorce. As applied to cases of desertion this statute merely changed and simplified the form of remedy, by substituting, for the double proceeding of a libel for a divorce nisi, and a petition to make it absolute at the expiration of not less than three years afterwards, as allowed by the St. of 1870, a single...
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Reddington v. Reddington
...unconstitutional. Shannon v. Shannon, 2 Gray 285;White v. White, 105 Mass. 325, 7 Am.Rep. 526;Sparhawk v. Sparhawk, 116 Mass. 315;Wales v. Wales, 119 Mass. 89. When that statute was enacted, there was in England no divorce from the bond of matrimony except by special Act of Parliament, whic......
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...passed and a libel had already been brought under the old statute. 10 See Bigelow v. Bigelow, 108 Mass. 38, 39-40 (1871); Wales v. Wales, 119 Mass. 89, 90-91 (1875). Compare West v. West, 2 Mass. 223, 226 (1806). In the light of these cases, we do not believe that a different result is impe......
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