Case Name: Nabby Perkins, Libellant, versus Daniel Perkins, Jun.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1809-11
Citations: 5 Tyng 69
Docket Number: 
Parties: Nabby Perkins, Libellant, versus Daniel Perkins, Jun.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 6
Pages: 57–58

Head Matter:
Nabby Perkins, Libellant, versus Daniel Perkins, Jun.
Where, after personal violence used by a husband to his wife, they continued for several years to reside together, the Court did not, for that reason, refuse a divorce a mensa et thora on the libel of the wife.
This was a libel for a divorce a mensa et thora for the extreme cruelty of the respondent.
The evidence was, that, for a long course of time, the respondent had made use of brutal language and violent threats of personal abuse; and that, about six years since, he unjustifiably assaulted and beat her; after which fact the parties continued to reside together, the respondent still continuing to use the same abuse and threatening language.
It was suggested for the respondent, that although the evidence of the personal violence used by him might have furnished a sufficient cause for a divorce, if it had been seasonably prosecuted, yet that the libellant, by her after cohabitation with him, had remitted her claim to a divorce, and had pardoned the outrage.

Opinion:
By the Court.
In case of an application for a divorce a vinculo for adultery, if, after knowledge of the offence committed, the libellant has lived with the offending party, we have always refused to grant the divorce ; but this rule cannot be applied to a case of the kind now before us. The patience and forbearance of a wife, and her endeavors to prevent the scandal of an open rupture, ought not to operate to her prejudice.
Divorce decreed.
[From the opinion of the Court, it would seem that they labored under a misapprehension of the law as administered in the Ecclesiastical Courts. For there may be a condonation in case of cruelty as well as in case of adultery, (2 Hagg. Eccl. R Suppl. p. 112,) and words of menace may amount to cruelty. — D'Aguillar vs D'Aguillar, 1 Hagg. 775. — Evans vs. Evans, 1 Hagg. Consist. R. 37, 38. — Durant vs Durant, 1 Hagg. Eccl. R. 768, 769. — Ed.]