Thompson v. Thompson

Citations

• 50 Pa. Super. 159
• 1912 Pa. Super. LEXIS 23

Syllabus

<p>Divorce — Desertion—Evidence—Separation.</p> <p>1. Where a boy seventeen years old clandestinely marries a servant in his mother’s household and takes her to his mother’s home and subsequently, when the mother discovers the marriage and expresses her indignation, the wife leaves the house without any remark or conduct on her part tending to show that she intended to desert, or permanently separate herself from her husband, and thereafter the husband never offers to provide a place where they could live together, and the whole course of the conduct of the parties shows that the wife was no more responsible than the husband for the separation, the court will not sustain a libel by the husband for divorce on the ground of his wife’s desertion.</p> <p>2. Separation is not desertion. Desertion is an actual abandonment of matrimonial cohabitation, with an intent to desert, willfully and maliciously persisted in without cause for two years.</p> <p>3. The guilty intent to desert is rebutted where the separation is encouraged by the other party or by mutual consent.</p> <p>4. The rule generally applicable to proceedings before a master or an auditor, that a finding of fact will not be disturbed except for manifest error is not applicable in an appeal from a decree granting a divorce. In such a case it is the duty of the appellate court to consider the whole case and review the evidence at length.</p>