Weigand v. Weigand

• Decision Date: 04 May 1886
• Citation: 41 N.J.E. 202,3 A. 699
• Parties: WEIGAND v. WEIGAND.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

3 A. 699

41 N.J.E. 202

WEIGAND

v. WEIGAND.¹

Court of Chancery of NEW JERSEY.

May 4, 1886.

On final hearing on bill and answer, and proofs taken in open court.

M. T. Newbold, for complainant.

Theodore Ryerson, for defendant.

VAN FLEET, V. C. The complainant seeks a decree against her husband for alimony. Her bill is filed under the twentieth section of the statute concerning divorces. To be entitled to prevail in her suit she must show that her husband, without justifiable cause, has abandoned her, or separated himself from her, and refused to maintain and provide for her. Both facte must be proved, both abandonment or separation, and a refusal to support. Anshutz v. Anshutz, 16 N. J. Eq. 162. It is not disputed that the defendant has refused to support the complainant. The contested question of the case is whether or not the defendant has abandoned or separated himself from his wife under such circumstances as gives her a right to a decree against him.

The parties were married in 1861. They are Germans. Their married life seems to have been happy and harmonious up until the summer of 1876. In March, 1875, a female servant was brought into the family. In the summer of 1876 the wife, on her return home from the city of New York, at a time when she was not expected, discovered her husband and this servant alone in the house under circumstances which led her to suspect that their relations were improper. Her suspicions-induced her to watch their conduct. In September, 1876, she detected them throwing kisses to each other, and she at once reproached her husband for his misconduct, when he, without a word of explanation or warning, struck her in the face, with his fist, with such force as to bruise her mouth and nose, loosen some of her teeth, and to cause blood to flow. The wife was then in the last stages of pregnancy. Eighteen days afterwards she was delivered of a child, which died within 24 hours after its birth. The wife at once sent the girl away. From this time on the conduct of the husband, according to the wife's testimony, was extremely filthy and brutal. She swears that he spit in the food which she was preparing, and that he choked her repeatedly, and kicked and struck her almost every day. He made her life wretched and miserable. There can be no doubt, under the proofs, that he allowed a guilty love for this girl to take complete possession of his heart, and to crowd out the love he once bore his wife. So eager did he become for the presence of this girl that he told his wife that unless she consented that the girl should return he would give her no peace. In December, 1876, the wife, after her husband gave her a very solemn promise that he would let the girl alone in the future, consented that she might return. She then came back, and remained until May, 1877, when the wife again discharged her because she was living in adultery with her husband, and also because she feared that the girl and her husband intended to poison her. The wife says that, when her husband found out that she had sent the girl away, he made an oath that he would make her the unhappiest woman in the land, and that he kept his oath. The girl was delivered of a bastard child on the twelfth of February, 1878. The paternity of the child is not disputed. The husband admits that it was his. He also admits that he took the girl on a pleasure trip while she was pregnant, and that he supported her from the time she was discharged until after the birth of her child. He further admits that he was present at the birth of the child, or shortly afterwards. The wife swears that her husband, on his return from the bedside of his paramour, where he had gone, at the request of his paramour, to be present at the birth of the child, came to her bed, at 2 o'clock in the morning, and said to her: "Thank God; Anne is well. She has a little girl which is just the image of me. I am very sorry it is dead. I left $10 for its burial." She then says that she ordered him out of her room, and told him that he and she could thereafter "have nothing more to do together as husband and wife." Her testimony also shows that from the time she discharged the girl, in May, 1877, until shortly before she went to Europe, in May, 1880, the defendant continued to treat her with great cruelty. The particular acts need not be recited. They consisted both of acts of physical violence and mental torture. Besides striking and kicking her, and throwing stones and sticks at her, and pouring hot ashes down her bare back, he spoke boastingly of his love for the girl, and his illicit relations with her, and at the same time taunted his wife with her incapacity to satisfy his sexual desires. When she reproached him with his infidelity, he mocked her with laughter. His conduct showed, in the most unmistakable manner, that the place she once held in his heart was now occupied by another, and that instead of loving he detested her.

The complainant went to Europe in May, 1880, with her two daughters, with the defendant's consent. Before leaving she engaged a person to take charge of her house in her absence. In consequence of her sickness, her stay in Europe was prolonged beyond the time she intended to stay when she started, and the housekeeper she had engaged was compelled to leave the defendant's house before the complainant returned. The housekeeper remained about three months. She did not leave by the procurement of the defendant, but because her presence was necessary in her own household. Shortly after the housekeeper left, the defendant brought Anne to his house, and installed her as his housekeeper. He says he did so by the direction of his wife. His story is that his wife wrote him from Heidelberg, stating that she had heard that his housekeeper had left, and asking why he did not go and get Anne; also saying that Anne had been there before, and was a good woman to take care of the house. The wife denies that she ever wrote anything of the kind, or that she was within 400 miles of Heidelberg while in Europe on this occasion. The letter is not produced. The husband says his wife destroyed it, with others, after her return. This the wife also denies. There is no difficulty, however, in deciding what the truth is. The husband's story is so improbable that it would be very difficult to believe it, even if it was vouched for by the oath of an impartial and credible witness. His infatuation for this girl had robbed this wife of her husband's love, and had made all the days of her future, which, but for his guilty passion, would, as she believed, have been full of happiness and peace, days of sorrow, wrong, and humiliation. She believed that this girl had inflicted upon her the most cruel wrong it is possible for a wife to suffer, and unless it can be believed that she was endowed with a spirit of forgiveness towards her own sex, rarely, if ever, exhibited before by an outraged wife, the husband's story must be rejected as unworthy of belief. But his own conduct makes it quite evident, I think, that his story is an invention. His wife did not return from Europe until the seventh of September, 1881. The girl remained with him from August or September, 1880, until the night before he expected his wife to return. He then took the girl away, together with her trunk. No reason is assigned for her going just at that time. It is not said that she was sick, or that the Service was disagreeable to her, or that the work was too heavy for her, or that she had been offered a more desirable place. If she had been there with the wife's approval, it is not at all probable that she would have left just as the wife was returning, and when her services were most needed, and when she had a right to expect, if she was worthy of the commendation that the husband says his wife bestowed upon her in her letter, some acknowledgment from the wife, besides thanks for the services she had rendered during her absence. The wife had driven the girl from the house twice before. The husband says she did so because she was jealous of the girl. There was reason for both jealousy and deep indignation. The husband, by adulterous...