| Summary: | Suit for a divorce and for alimony. The couple were married from 1836 to 1844, when the wife went to live with her brother. The wife's petition accused the husband of taking to drink for weeks at a time, beating her and committing adultery with a slave from the plantation called Lucy. She deposed that he allowed Lucy to take over the running of the house and insulted the petitioner by openly and repeatedly ordering her to give place to the said negro. The husband's answer admitted that at one time he had been much intoxicated but assured the court that such behaviour had ceased several years before his wife left him. He denied all the other allegations. It was proved by witnesses that the husband had had a child with Lucy. The court granted a divorce a vinculo matrimonii and ordered an inquiry into the nature of a settlement for the wife. The husband appealed to the Supreme Court, which, though it admitted that the husband had treated his wife with contempt, depriving her of all authority as mistress of the house and conferring it on the negro, and that he had committed adultery with Lucy, reversed the granting of the divorce a vinculo on the grounds that no adultery had been proved after the wife left home and that a reconciliation was still possible as the parties had not seen each other since she left. Petition dismissed.
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