132 Ga. 745 | Ga. | 1909
The defendant in error brought suit against the plaintiff in error, for a divorce on the ground of cruel treatment. The jury found a verdict in his favor, granting him a total divorce. To the order of the court overruling the motion of the wife for a new trial she excepted. The evidence of the plaintiff was substantially as follows: He and the defendant were married in Chattanooga, Tenn.,Nin June, 1900. His wife agreed that if he would consent to be married by the priest, he could raise any children born of the marriage as he saw fit in the Protestant faith and she would raise no objection thereto. The priest informed him that he could not perform the ceremony unless an agreement was made to raise such children to be Catholics, that the agreement was just a matter of form, but that he could not perform the ceremony unless such agreement was made. He made such agreement in writing, though he did not tell his wife of having made it. He and she had some disagreement about the first child being christened by a priest, but he finally agreed to permit it, with the understanding that the children should also be baptized into the Protestant church. He was a clerk in his father’s saloon in Chattanooga, and moved his wife into a room above it. She finally became dissatisfied with living over the saloon, and wanted to move to her mother’s home. He did not want to go and live with her mother, but wanted her to live above the saloon. She would not go to any entertainments or similar places with him; she did not wish to go. She insisted on his quitting the saloon business ever since they were married, and he finally decided to quit it and go to Rising Fawn, Ga., but she did not want to go to Rising Fawn. They moved to Rising Fawn and resided with his father for awhile, and then went to housekeeping. Finally she said she was going back to Chattanooga to stay, and went back and stayed several weeks. He gave her no cause to leave. He told his father that she had gone back to stay and he thought he would let her stay until she got ready to come back. He never went after her, but his father went and insisted on her coming back, and she returned. She was dissatisfied with staying at Rising Fawn all the time. The
The' wife testified on the trial of the case, denying many of the complaints made by her husband, explaining others, and detailing his conduct towards her; but it is -unnecessary to set forth any of the testimony other than that of the husband. The most important parts of his testimony relating' to his wife’s conduct are hereinabove set forth. The parties were married in June, 1900, and the final separation occurred in October, 1904.
One assignment of error in the amendment to the motion for a new trial is as follows: “Because the court erred in charging the jury as follows: £I direct you to find a verdict against the plaintiff for the sum of $720, it being the amount due on the judgment in Tennessee, up to this date; but I hold that the plaintiff is not bound by so much of the judgment that provides for future payments of $40 per month/ The error in the above charge being that the plaintiff was liable for the sum of $720 which had accrued to the date of. trial, together with $40 per month in the future, as provided in said decree of the proceedings in the chancery court of Tennessee, Hamilton county.” The plaintiff in error complains of the refusal of the court to charge the jury that they should find a verdict in her favor for future payments of $40 per month, and also complains that the verdict failing to so find was contrary to law and evidence. The decree of the chancery, court of Tennessee in its final shape, after being modified as directed in the decision of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, left the payments of alimony of $40 per month in the discretion of the chancellor. Under this decree the chancellor had a right to stop or reduce