Youngs v. Youngs

Citations

• 130 Ill. 230
• 6 L.R.A. 548

Syllabus

<p>1. Devoboe — ‘habitual drunkenness,” as a ground, of divorce—in what drunkenness may consist—of the morphine habit—the statute construed. The word “drunkenness,” as used in the statute as a ground of divorce, means that state or condition which inevitably follows from the taking into the body of excessive quantities of alcoholic or other intoxicating liquors. It is used in the statute in its ordinary and popular sense, and does not mean that similar state or condition produced by the use of morphine by hypodermic injection into the arms or legs. It can not be held to include that intoxication produced by the hypodermic administration of morphine.</p> <p>2. To make the excessive indulgence in the morphine habit a ground for divorce will require further legislative action, as it is not made such by the present statute. It is beyond the power of courts to extend the statutory grounds of divorce to cases not within the legislative intent.</p> <p>3. Same—cruelty—in what it may consist. If the acts of violence relied upon as cruelty in a suit by a wife for divorce, are provoked by her attempting to take from her husband morphine he was using, and while he was in a state of total or partial delirium, and his acts were mainly of resistance to such attempt, she can not set up the treatment received by her, under such circumstances, as extreme and repeated cruelty, within the meaning of the statute. ,</p> <p>4. Same—condonation of acts of cruelty. Where a wife continues to live and cohabit with her husband several months after the last act of personal violence by him, and nothing is shown to do away with her condonation, this will be a bar to a bill for divorce upon the ground of cruelty, filed by her afterward.</p> <p>5. Same—sufficiency of bill—as to the charge of cruelty. A bill for divorce charging cruelty only in general terms, without stating any specific acts, is subject to demurrer.</p>