Spencer v. Spencer

Per Curiam. We have here a rather dreary chronicle of domestic strife which began when the parties were married in 1942. The appellant is a physician in general practice in rural Montgomery County. He is 49 ; the appellee is 47. ²⁸² They have three children, Sheldon 23, Sheryl 18, and Deborah 12.

The two girls live with their mother who left the marital abode on 4 June 1968. In her bill of complaint, filed two weeks later, there are allegations of “extreme cruelty” which the appellant denied. The case came on for trial before J. M. Mathias, J., in April 1969. After four days of testimony Judge Mathias dismissed appellant’s cross-bill, granted the appellee a divorce a mensa and awarded to her the custody of the two girls.

He ordered also the payment of alimony, support for the children, counsel fees and costs. In his opinion he said, in part: “The plaintiff [appellee] testified that her husband began physically to abuse her in 1951 and such abuse has steadily grown worse, especially in the year or so before the separation. She described in detail five particular instances, which occurred on February 25, February 28, March 11, April 26 and May 28, all in the year 1968. We will not go into minute detail, but the wife’s testimony was that on these occasions her husband had brutally assaulted her, forcing her to submit to sexual intercourse against her will, on one occasion kicking her with his knee in the spine and on the last occasion getting a scissors grip with his legs on her head and forcing her face into the bed covers, to the point where she feared that she would be suffocated. “Although the wife was not able to produce eyewitnesses to each of these incidents, her daughter Sheryl, a neighbor child Terry Schrock, and a good friend Mrs. Irma Brown, furnished sufficient corroboration to satisfy the requirements of Article 35, Section 4.

The requirements for corroboration are not so strict as they used to be before the repeal of Rule S75. “The husband and his son, although they admitted having seen bruises on the plaintiff, generally denied any vicious assault upon her. The ²⁸³ husband himself admitted that he had grabbed her and held her; and blamed the dissension between them on her alleged uncooperative attitude. “There was considerable testimony to show that over a period of years the husband had compelled the wife to operate a frugal household, causing her to resort to the humiliating experience of appearing at her husband’s medical office to obtain money for household necessities. Strangely, this testimony is unrebutted. There was another occasion according to the testimony when the wife, in order to obtain five dollars for needed household expenses,