Martin v. Martin

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court for Washington County, dismissing the bill of complaint filed by the wife against the husband for a divorce a vinculo matri ¹⁸³ muitii from the defendant, on the ground of cruelty, desertion, and adultery. Tlie defendant answered the bill, denying the allegationsi of fact as to the grounds for the divorce, and by way of counter-accusation charged adultery against the wife. It is clear that the proof in the record is not sufficient to sustain the charge of adultery by the wife against the husband, nor to establish the counter charge of adultery by the husband against the wife. It is contended, however, upon the proof set out in the record, that the wife is entitled to a divorce a, mensa &t thoro, for cruelty of treatment and desertion, under section 38 of article 16 of the Code of Public General Laws and that the court below committed an error in denying the wife this relief.

The testimony jn the ease covers over two hundred pages of the record and, after careful examination of all of it, we find no sufficient reason for disturbing the decree and conclusion reached by the judge of the Circuit Court for Washington County, before whom the case was tried, and his opinion, setting out the reasons for this conclusion, is contained in the record. It appears that the parties were married on the 12th of October, 1904, in Hagerstown, Md., and lived together as husband and wife until May 10th, 1920, and, as a result of this marriage, one child was horn to them, who is now an infant about thirteen years of age. They lived together at various places after their marriage, but removed bach to Hagerstown in August, 1915, and have been living there since that date. The wife is thirty-eight years of age and is in good health.

The husband is about the same age, and is also in good health. The testimony, it will bo seen, is voluminous and somewhat conflicting in its details. A large part of it is of a character to forbid its review in detail or to he recited in any Court. It abounds in allegations and charges, of cruelty and exces ¹⁸⁴ sively vicious conduct on the part of both the husband and the wife, and if true, both of the parties are justly subject to the severest censure and criticism.

In Hawkins v. Hawkins, 6 5 Md. 104 , it was held that a wife will not bo granted a divorce a mensa ei thoro upon the ground of alleged cruelty of treatment and excessively vicious conduct on the part of the husband, if it shall appear that she has been likewise guilty of cruel treatment towards him. The same rule was adopted and applied by the Court in Fisher v. Fisher, 93 Md. 300 , where it was held that neither of the parties wore entitled to a divorce, and the bill was dismissed. In Mattox v. Mattox, 2 Ohio, 232, the court said the application for divorce was to the equitable jurisdiction of the court and must be decided by the principles, which prevail in courts of equity. The plaintiff must come with clean hands and a chaste character, not stained with the same infamy and crime of which she complains.

These parties are in pari delicto and to grant relief to either of them would be offering a bounty to guilt. It would place the permanency of the marriage contract, in every case., at the disposal of the contracting parties, and remove one of the strongest motives to that