Hewitt v. Long

Citations

• 76 Ill. 399

Syllabus

<p>1. Custody of children—good of child the primary object. In disposing of the custody of children, the primary object should be the good of the children, and where the child has arrived at an age to choose for itself, the court will not take it from one parent and give it to another against iis wishes. 2. Same—ground of father's superior right at common law. The father’s paramount right to the custody of his child by the common law, springs from his obligation to provide for its maintenance. Where he is fully-discharged from that obligation by decree of court granting his wife a divorce, his common law right to the custody of his child must necessarily yield to the discretionary power over the subject vested by the statute in the court.</p> <p>3. Same—effect of decree of divorce on question. Where a divorce is granted to a wife for the misconduct of the husband, on a subsequent application to modify the decree giving the mother the custody of their child, the father will be conclusively estopped from alleging any facts inconsistent with those found in the decree of divorce.</p> <p>4. Where the' father wilfully deserted his wife before the birtli of their daughter, without cause, went to another State, and when the child was fourteen years of age, sought to have the decree giving the child to her mother on divorce modified, and her custody given to him, so that he might take her out of the State among total strangers, and thus deprive the- mother, the unoffending party, of her society, and it appeared that the child did not want to be taken from her mother, who was devotedly attached to her, and was shown to be an amiable and respectable person, and to have done her duty by the child, and was able to give her a good education and properly care for her, it was held, that a decree giving the child to the father thus situated, although wealthy-, could not be sustained, and the same was reversed, and the petition of the father dismissed.</p>