Case ID: ohio-ch_1/html/0630-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HENRY MORRIS v. NANCY ANN MORRIS.
    Divorce — fraud—pregnancy—quakeress.
    t is a fraud for a pregnant woman to represent herself virtuous to induce a marriage, and take means to prevent a discovery of her situation, for which a divorce may be decreed.
    Divorce. Cause fraud in the defendant in imposing herself on the plaintiff, as a virtuous woman, when she was pregnant with child.
    It appeared in evidence, that the complainant was an honest simple fellow of about twenty-eight years old, but little used to female society. He first saw the defendant who is a quaker, and thirty-five years old, in Indiana, the 4th of July, 1833. She pleased him much', so that he became instantly attached to her, and continued his unremitted attentions with her approbation, till they were married the 17th of October following. On the 10th of November, she was delivered of a full grown child, four months after their first interview, and twenty-three days after the marriage. The marriage took place in the dusk of the evening without lights, with only a quaker lady, sister of the defendant, a clergyman, and a male friend of the complainant present, and under circumstances as to the position and movement of the bride, with an arrangement of the full quaker dress of the ladies, which excited the suspicion of the clergyman. The husband and wife lived together without his suspicions being awakened, until the wife was taken in labor pains, and presented her wondering spouse a full grown child before the expiration of the honeymoon. After which they separated. The reputation of both parties stood fair in the neighborhood.
   Divorce decreed. The child given to the mother.