147 Mo. App. 591 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1910
Suit by plaintiff against defendant for divorce on the ground of desertion, suit commenced September 4, 1908. Both parties, it is averred, lived in this State and in the city of St. Louis the statutory period required for residence and for giving jurisdiction to the circuit court of that city. The ground set out is desertion, it being alleged that defendant had absented herself from plaintiff without a reasonable cause for the space of one year. Defendant vas personally served but made default. At the final hearing of the cause plaintiff testified that he was a resident of the city of St. Louis; that he and defendant were married in 1898, and began living together in the city of St. Louis immediately after the marriage and had continued to live there together until the 6th of . June, 1905, when the defendant left him; that plaintiff had always treated defendant with kindness and consideration, gave her all the money he could spare outside of his own personal expenses; that the allowance to her for her expenses depended upon what he made, if he made $27 a week he would sometimes give her as high as $24 out of the $27; that defendant was engaged in dressmaking business all of the time the parties were married and did not attend to household duties, the household work being performed for a time by a sister of the defendant and a greater part of the time by plaintiff’s mother, who lived with plaintiff and defendant and did the household workj that defendant
At the instance of the court defendant was brought into court on subpoena. She testified that she had left plaintiff on the 6th of June, 1904 or 1905. In answer to a question by the court, she stated that she left plaintiff because she did not want to live with him any longer; didn’t care for him any more; had grown tired of him, “he was not just exactly as he ought to have been;” grew tired of him because she did not think he gave her sufficient support; gave her ten or fifteen dollars a month. Was employed in the hat business; also kept a rooming house sometimes; supposed plaintiff earned more money than he said he did, although she never knew exactly what he earned. Plaintiff had not always given her fifteen dollars a month and never gave her more than that from 1898 until 1905, when she left. Her reason for leaving plaintiff, she repeated, was that she grew tired of him; she did not care for him any more and had no affection for him. There was no one else that she had any affection for, but she thought that if plaintiff had given her sufficient support she would be living with him yet. In answer to a question of the court as to whether she would care to go back and live with plaintiff, she answered, “Well, at that time I left, I do not think he cared for me.” On cross-examination she testified that plaintiff had never abused her personally. This was substantially all the testimony in the case. At the conclusion of the trial the court entered1 a decree dismissing the bill. Plaintiff in due time filed a motion for new trial which was overruled, exception saved and appeal duly perfected to this court.
•The statute governing divorce (section 2921, R-. S. 1899')' specifically allows a divorce in cases where either party to the marriage “has absented himself or herself without a reasonable cause for the space of one year. ’ ’ With the policy of adopting such a statute and consti
The judgment of the circuit court is reversed and remanded, with directions to that court to enter up a decree awarding the divorce to the plaintiff.