Case Name: Elizabeth French, Libellant, versus Abraham French
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1808-11
Citations: 3 Tyng 587
Docket Number: 
Parties: Elizabeth French, Libellant, versus Abraham French.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 4
Pages: 515–516

Head Matter:
Elizabeth French, Libellant, versus Abraham French.
Unprovoked force and violence used towards a wife are sufficient evidence of extreme cruelty, to maintain a libel for a divorce a mensa et thora.
Where, upon a divorce a mensa et thora, alimony is decreed, and made payable quarter-yearly, the Court will not issue execution, without first making a rule on the husband to show cause.
This was a libel for a divorce from bed and board propter smvi~ tiam, with a prayer for alimony, the libel containing, besides the charge of cruelty, an allegation of the probable value of the husband’s property.
The Court observed that it was regular for the respondent to plead, and to deny the cruelty, and also the amount of the property alleged.
The respondent pleaded “ that the prayer of the said Elizabeth ought not to be granted, because he says that all and singular the allegations contained in the libel aforesaid are wholly false and untrue.”
The libellant proved some instances of personal violence and severity, which appeared to have been wholly unprovoked. The respondent attempted, by way of excuse, to prove that he was occasionally subject to mental derangement.
Ward for the libellant.
Bigelow and Jos. Loche for the respondent.

Opinion:
By the Court.
There must be extreme cruelty, without the fault of the wife, to authorize the Court to liberate her from the control of her husband. But when force and violence [ * 588 ] * are once used without provocation, the woman is unsafe. Such a husband ought not to have power over his wife. The excuse is not made out.
A divorce was decreed, with an allowance of alimony payable quarter yearly, the first quarter to commence on the day of decreeing the divorce.
The counsel for the libellant inquired whether execution should issue for the amount of the instalments, as they should fall due, if not paid.
The Court made an order that execution issue, as the instalments become due, in any county where the Court may be
Note. — At an adjournment of March term in Suffolk, holden m July, Ward pro duced the affidavit of Elizabeth French, alleging that a quarter had some time since expired, and that the instalment then due was not paid, and moved the Court to issue an execution in her favor for the amount due; and he relied on the order passed at the time the divorce was decreed.
The Court doubted their power under the statute to issue execution in this case without notice to the respondent; and at Ward's motion a rule was made, returnable at the next term in Middlesex, for the said James French to show cause why execution should not issue against him for the sum in arrear, and also why an attachment for a contempt should not be awarded against him.
[Hill vs. Hill, 2 Mass. Rep. 150, and note. —Evans vs. Evans, Hagg. Con. R. 37—39. — Holden vs. Holden, Hagg. Con. R. 458.— Waring vs. Waring, 2 Phil. 132, 133. — Hulme vs. Hulme, 2 Ad. 27.— Otway vs. Otway, 2 Phil. 95.— Westmeath vs. Westmeath, 2 Hagg. 113. — Oliver vs. Oliver, 1 Hagg. 364. — Harris vs. Harris, 2 Hagg. 148. — 2 Phil. 111. — Kirkman vs. Kirkman, 1 Hagg. 409. — Durant vs. Durant, 1 Hagg. 767, 768. — Ed.]