Opinion
07-03-1905
CORSON v. CORSON.
Joseph Beck Tyler, for complainant,
Suit for divorce by Ettie Corson against Charles Corson. Denied.
Joseph Beck Tyler, for complainant,
MAGIE, Ch. This is an undefended divorce case, and the master to whom it was referred has found that the proofs establish a willful, continued, and obstinate desertion of the complainant by the defendant. I find myself unable to discover sufficient proof to that effect. This is a case of the hasty marriage of a mere child, who admits that she misrepresented her age to the clergyman who performed the ceremony. It seems manifest that there was no provision for, or expectation of, establishing a marital home. She and the husband thus acquired went to a hotel for two or three days, and then separated, she going to her own home and he to his former residence. She states that thereafter they met at times at the same hotel, but such meetings soon ceased. Upon this evidence—and there is no other—the inference is that the separation was voluntary. Was this separation turned into desertion by the proofs? If so, it is by the evidence of complainant and her brother as to what occurred when she met her husband in a public street, in the month of June, 1888. Both agree that the complainant then demanded of her husband whether he would support her or make a home for her. While she did not expressly demand a return of the marital relation, such a demand was, perhaps, implied, and, if so, a refusal would be indicative of an intent to desert, if the husband was able to do what he was requested to do. Of this there is absolutely no proof. Complainant's solicitor, who has been heard as to the confirmation of the master's report, insists that the violence and threats of the husband on that occasion operate to establish a constructive desertion; but complainant was not then living with defendant. If she had been, his violence and threats might have justified her leaving him, and the inference of a desertion by him. But the parties were then living apart, and complainant was not driven from her marital home, or excluded therefrom. Violence and threats may characterize the defendant's conduct, if, when he made them he was able to provide for a resumption of the marital relation, and make a home for his wife of which no proof is made.
The result is that the report cannot be confirmed, and the bill must be dismissed.