Estate & Guardianship of White

Citations

• 1 Coffey 128

Syllabus

<p>Marital Obligation—Filial Devotion.—A husband should not allow the duty he owes to his wife to be overcome by his love for his parents. Where one’s marital obligation comes into conflict with his filial devotion, the latter should give way to the former.</p> <p>Guardianship.—Assuming that a Father’s Eight to the Custody of his child revives upon the death of the mother, who had been awarded the custody under a divorce decree, yet it must be shown that the minor’s interest will be conserved by recognizing the father’s right.</p> <p>Guardianship.—Where a Husband Deserts His Wife, who is left to care and provide for their infant child, this will be considered as an abandonment of the child, upon the father’s application for guardianship after the mother’s death.</p> <p>Guardianship.—Eeluctant as the Court Always is to Interfere with a Father’s natural right to his child’s custody, it will do so where the child's interest demands.</p> <p>Guardianship.—In the Case at Bar the Court Refused Guardianship of a minor of divorced parents to its father, applying after the death of the mother, and granted letters to the maternal grandmother of the minor, for the following reasons: The child had been awarded to the mother by a divorce decree against the father; the father never provided for the child, except when compelled by judicial process; he never showed any interest in the child from the time of his desertion of the mother, and by his continued course of conduct manifested a lack of paternal instinct; the maternal grandmother had received the mother and child when deserted by the father, and had ever afterward given them shelter and assistance, and she was the nominee of the mother, by the latter’s dying request.</p>