Blades v. Blades

Markell, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from a decree granting the husband a divorce a vinculo and dismissing the wife’s cross-bill for alimony. The bill charged adultery, the cross-bill abandonment and adultery. The transcript comprises 2700 pages, the appendices 900.

Much of the 900 pages relates to the wife’s charges of adultery, which have been abandoned at the argument. More is irrelevant or repetitious. The parties were married in 1918 and lived together happily for twenty-five years. Three children and a foster child are all of age, married and no longer at home.

From 1919 to 1943 the couple lived, and the wife still lives, in a house on Park Avenue in Baltimore, owned by them as tenants by the entireties. In 1943 the husband left the house and took a room on Cathedral Street, where he still lives. He says he left and continued to stay away because she made life unbearable by groundless suspicions and incessant charges against him and one woman or another. Nevertheless they continued marital relations sporadically, frequently during 1947 on week ends at the Park Avenue house or at their “shore place” or on trips, less frequently in prior years, and last of all on a Christmas visit to Norfolk, from which they returned on December 29, 1947.

They both profess to have hoped for an eventual “reconciliation”. The husband says that about 1943 the wife’s nature seemed to change completely and she became as different as Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. At least as early as 1945 he said she was mentally sick and not accountable for her actions, and urged that she receive psychiatric attention. In addition to the undisputed testimony of the husband and other witnesses to her high character as a wife and mother for twenty-five years, her own testimony lends color to the suggestion of sudden mental illness and lack of accountability since 1943.

At the argument, however, her counsel denied any suggestion of mental illness as vigorously as he denied the charges of ⁵⁰⁸ adultery.- Wé are unable to pursue any such possibility, as. the evidence does-not establish, though it does suggest, mental illness. . Practically throughout their married life, the wife rented rooms in their home. After he left the house, she continued to take “roomers”. We are told that this was a friendly house, where everyone came and went as he chose and doors — front door or bedroom door — were seldom locked.

At least two third storey rooms and the second storey front room were rented or for rent. Mrs. Blades’ room was the second storey back, and behind it was a smaller room, which could be reached only by going through her room. This smaller room from time to time was occupied by Mr. Blades, by their son Webster, Junior, by others members of the family and by young friends of Webster, Junior, with him or, she says, sometimes without him. At the trial the husband charged five specific acts of adultery, all at the Park Avenue house, all in 1947 except one shortly after midnight at the end of the year, all but one supported by evidence (true or false) of one or more eye-witnesses, which falls short only of flagrans delictum.

Compromising situations the wife faces with an air of injured innocence and a modernistic attitude of Honi soi qui mal y pense, as if only some evil Puritanical mind would draw inferences against her. Some direct testimony is met with indignant denial. ' In her reply brief it is said that, “as the record shows”, four named witnesses, three of them roomers who showed no bias against her, “each gave obviously perjured testimony” for the husband “in respect of four of the five alleged episodes from which adultery by the [wife] was sought to be inferred.” In some respects witnesses on both sides are (in the words of counsel) “a motley crew”. However, even if we could escape drawing the usual inferences from conduct, we could not thus summarily dispose of questions of veracity. Not having seen the witnesses, we are not able to pronounce any of the testi ⁵⁰⁹ mony “obviously perjured” except that of Jack Ashley, who will be mentioned presently.

At the conclusion of the argument below Judge France said, “With respect to the original bill,