Case ID: mass_114/html/0347-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Gray, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Joseph Garnett vs. Mary E. Garnett.
    The provision of Gen. Sts. c. 107, § 44, allowing a share of the wife’s estate to be granted to the husband upon a divorce from the bond of matrimony, does not apply to a divorce nisi under St. 1870, c. 404.
    Libel for divorce. At April term, 1873, the libel was heard, and a decree entered granting to the husband a divorce nisi from the bond of matrimony, under St. 1870, c. 404, for extreme cruelty, and gross and confirmed habits of intoxication contracted by the wife after marriage.
    The libellant asked that a share of the wife’s estate might be given him in the nature of alimony.
    It appeared in evidence at the hearing, before Endicott J., that the libellant conveyed all his real estate, of the value, at the time of the hearing, of $7500, to his wife on or before the date of his marriage in 1865 : that after the' marriage he gave $2000, all his personal property, to her; that he was old, and feeble in body and mind, and unable to work, and having been driven from his home by the treatment of his wife, was, and had been for more than a year, supported in the Lowell almshouse.
    The libellee contended that alimony could not be decreed under Gen. Sts. o. 107, § 44, upon the granting of a divorce nisi, and the court so ruled, and, at the request of the parties, reserved the question raised for the decision of the full court.
    
      G. Stevens, for the libellant.
    
      C. Cowley, for the libellee.
   Gray, C. J.

The Gen. Sts. c. 107, § 44, authorized the court to grant a share of the wife’s estate in the nature of alimony to the husband, only upon a decree of divorce from the bond of matrimony, absolutely and finally severing the marriage tie. A divorce nisi under the St. of 1870, c. 404, was not such a divorce, but was in the nature of a divorce from bed and board, not absolutely dissolving the bond of matrimony between the parties. Graves v. Graves, 108 Mass. 314. Edgerly v. Edgerly, 112 Mass. 53. It was therefore rightly ruled that the Gen. Sts. c. 107, § 44, did not apply to a decree of divorce nisi under the St. of 1870.

Application denied.