White v. White

• Decision Date: 31 January 1881
• Citation: 84 N.C. 340
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: MARTHA WHITE v. WILLIAM WHITE.

84 N.C. 340

MARTHA WHITE

v.WILLIAM WHITE.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1881.

CIVIL ACTION for divorce a mensa et thoro tried at December Special Term, 1880, of LENOIR Superior Court, before Seymour, J.

The defendant appeals from the judgment below.

Messrs. Grainger & Bryan, for plaintiff .

Messrs. Geo. V. Strong and W. T. Dortch, for defendant .

SMITH, C. J.

The plaintiff, who married the defendant in 1867, she being then about thirty, and her husband sixty-three years of age, commenced her action on April 29th, 1875, for divorce from bed and board, and, besides general charges of brutal treatment, assigns as the special grounds of her application three separate acts of violence suffered at his hands. She alleges:

1. That on the 1st day of January, 1872, he struck her at their residence on the head with a piece of iron about one and a half feet long, causing bruises and swelling which lasted for a week.

2. That in August of the next year at their residence he gave her several blows with a stick two feet in length and one and a half inches in diameter on her head and hip, accompanying the beating with abusive language, from which wounds blood flowed and she suffered severe pain for more than a week.

3. That on April 16th, 1874, he abused her and with a pestle one and a half feet long gave her several blows, cutting and bruising her badly, the effects of which remained for a week.

All this violence she declares was committed on her person without any provocation, and she is entirely silent as to the antecedent and attending circumstances, and the causes which prompted the defendant thus to act. She makes no statement of her own conduct, nor of any facts in explanation of the three violent assaults described in the complaint, separated at long intervals from each other, so that the court can see whether there was any and what excuse or extenuation for such outbursts of temper in an old man crippled and verging upon seventy years of age, contenting herself with the brief averment that there was no provocation given. The plaintiff's statements obviously present a partial view of the several transactions mentioned, and not a full and fair narrative of what occurred on those occasions, so that the court can determine the sufficiency of the grounds upon which the application is based. It is difficult to conceive how such an innate impulse of rage and passion can exist in the human heart and break out in acts of brutal violence to an unoffending wife, without an exciting though it may be a wholly inexcusable cause. And it is due to the court whose interposing and protecting power is asked, that all the essential facts should be truthfully and fairly stated. The policy of the law does not favor the separation of married persons, because of domestic strife and dissensions, and does so when one “shall by cruel or barbarous treatment endanger the life of the other,” or “shall offer such indignities to the person of the other as to render his or her condition intolerable and life burdensome.” Bat. Rev., ch. 37, § 4. So the allegations in the complaint, without an answer, are denied in law, and the material facts must be found by the jury. § 7. And therefore the complaint should contain a fair representation of any transaction relied on as the ground of the decree, since its defects are not aided by the verdict. McQueen v. McQueen, 82 N. C., 471.

“We are of opinion,” remarks PEARSON, C. J., speaking for the court in a case where the petition was obnoxious to the same objection, “that it was necessary to state the circumstances under which the blow with the horsewhip and the blow with the switch were given; for instance, what was the conduct of the petitioner; what had she done or said to induce such violence on the part of the husband.” Joyner v. Joyner, 6 Jones Eq., 322.

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