Young v. Young

⁸⁵ Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court: The parties to this suit were married on the 6th day of October, 1917, and lived together at the home of the husband’s parents until the 4th day of January, 1919, when the wife, without the knowledge or consent of the husband, left the home and went to the home of her sisters in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. On the 17th of January, 1919, she filed a bill for divorce a mensa, et thoro in the Circuit Court for Washington County, charging in the bill that “her husband has treated her with great cruelty, harshness and brutality,, at one time striking her, and that his conduct became so intolerable that she was obliged to leave the house of his parents, where she had been residing since her marriage. On the 19th of March, 1919, the defendant answered the bill, denying the allegations of fact contained therein as to the grounds for the divorce, and on the same day he filed a cross bill against his wife for a divorce a mensa upon the grounds of abandonment and desertion. Answer and replication were filed, and the testimony was taken in open court.

At the conclusion of the whole evidence the plaintiff filed a petition in the case in which she reaffirmed the matters and facts alleged in her bill of complaint, but stated that “she is unable at this time to procure sufficient evidence in support of said allegations and prayed the Court to dismiss the bill without prejudice. Her bill was accordingly dismissed without prejudice by an order1 of Court dated July 29th, 1919, and on the 16th of August it dismissed the cross-bill with costs to the defendant. Prom this order the husband has brought this appeal. By Section 38, Article 16 of the Code, a divorce a mensa may be granted for abandonment, and desertion without regard to duration.

Brown v. Brown, 2 Md. Ch. 317 . Abandonment and desertion, to constitute a ground for divorce a mensa, must be the deliberate act of the party complained of, done with the intent that the marriage relation should no longer exist. Etheridge v. Etheridge, 126 Md. 11 . ⁸⁶ The testimony of the wife in support of her bill was not corroborated to the extent required by law to warrant the Court in granting the relief prayed for, but a careful examination •of the evidence has satisfied us that she was very unhappy in the home of her husband’s parents, and was anxious and urgent that he should provide a separate home or apartment for her. This is denied by the husband and his witnesses, who pictured such a state of contentment, satisfaction and domestic happiness on the part of the husband and wife as to mduce the Court to ask one of the witnesses for the husband i: “ following question: “She had it easier than any one else in Hagerstown?

Answer. Yes, sir.” It is unnecessary to recapitulate the