20 S.C. Eq. 387 | S.C. Ct. App. | 1846
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The zeal with which this appeal has been urged, and the importance of the question involved, may render it proper to elucidate, by some further observations, the principles propounded by the decree.
A Court of Chancery was first established in South Carolina in 1721. By the tenth section of the Act it is provided “that the said Court shall proceed, adjudge and determine in all causes brought into the said Court, as near as may be, according to the known laws, customs, statutes and usages of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and also, as near as may be, according to the known and established rules of his Majesty’s High Court of Chancery in South Britain.” ’ By the first section of the Act of 1791, it is declared that the laws, then of force, for establishing and regulating the Court of Chancery within this State, shall be and continue of force in this State, until altered or repealed by the legislature thereof, subject, nevertheless, to such alterations, amendments and restrictions as are thereinafter directed.
It would seem, then, only necessary to inquire whether, by the known usages and practice of the Court of Chancery in England, or by force of any special statute of South Carolina, the Court of Equity has jurisdiction of this cause. In England it is well settled that the cognizance of matrimonial causes belongs exclusively to the Ecclesiastical Courts. For a short time, during the Protectorate of Cromwell, when the spiritual courts were closed and the civil law was silenced, the Court of Chancery took cognizance of cases of alimony, but on the re-establishment of the Courts Christian, after the restoration, a demurrer to a bill of alimony was sustained.— Such had been the usage of Westminster Hall in 1721. No Court of Chancery in England, no judge of a Chancery Court, has ever, at any time, in the most disturbed condition of civil society, undertaken to pronounce a marriage null and void, or to take cognizance of such matter. Nearly a quarter of a century ago the Supreme Court of this State, in Rhame v. Rhame, advert to the practice of the English Court of Chancery, as well as to that of South Carolina, in relation to matrimonial causes, and it is there declared that the case of alimony has
The motion is dismissed.
Motion dismissed.