Reports of cases argued and decided in the Supreme Court of the State of Texas during December term, 1848. Volume 3. Page: 79
vi, 659 [660] ; 22 cm.View a full description of this book.
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SHEFFIELD VS. SHEFFIELD. 79
and are believed to be of so grave a character as should have forbidden
a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, because they show
at thecommencernent of the suit he had no cause of action.
The judgment is reversed and the cause dismissed.
Judge WHEELER gave no opinion in this case.,
LYDIA SITEFFIELD VS. JAMES R. SHEFFIELD-Appeal- from
Gonzales County.
The confessions of a party, when unsustained by collateral circumstances, are
not competent proof of the fact of adultery.
By our statute, divorces are placed upon broader grounds than separations
from bed and board are placed by the ecclesiastical law of England. A series
of studied vexations and deliberate insults and provocations, would be
sufficient cause for divorce, without apprehension of personal violence or
bodily hurt. They would constitute the intolerable treatment contemplated
by the statute. [Post, 168.]
The opinions of witnesses are inadmissible as evidence. The jury must draw
their own conclusions from the facts which are proved; and these facts, in
cases of divorce, must be such as to produce the conviction that a continuance
of the matrimonial relation between the parties would be insupportable.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
VANDERLIP for appellant.
The verdict of the jury in this case should have been set
aside and a new trial granted.
The policy of American law is generally in favor of the stability
of the marriage union.
If the facts proved upon the trial of this cause in the court
below are sufficient to authorize a divorce by any construction
of the statute, it might almost lead to the destruction of the
marriage institution within the state.
The facts proved in this cause do not show "excesses, cruel
treatment or outrages of such a character as to render the living
together of the parties insupportable."
To constitute such treatment in judgment of law, there must
be a serious apprehension of bodily harm. All the authorities
agree that mere ill-temper, want of civil attention, or even violent
displays of passion, are not sufficient grounds for a divorce
a mnensa et thoro. [2 Kent, 125-6; 2 Mass. Rep. 150; 4
AMass. Rep. 587; 3 Mass. Rep. 321; 5 Johns. Ch. Rep. 187, 501.]
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Texas. Supreme Court. Reports of cases argued and decided in the Supreme Court of the State of Texas during December term, 1848. Volume 3., book, 1881; St. Louis, Mo.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth28571/m1/85/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .