150 Ga. 460 | Ga. | 1920
Lead Opinion
(After stating the certified questions.)
Dnder no fair construction of the contract can the conclusion be reached that it provides for a divorce between the parties and the dissolution of the marriage contract as one of the contingencies on which the alleged contract should be carried out. The rights of the wife, who is living separate from her husband, to
If the wife should marry again, the second husband would be responsible for her support. This was evidently in the minds of the parties in making this contract; and it was contemplated that the wife, would have no occasion, in the event of her subsequent marriage, to resort to the provision contained in the contract for the monthly payments stipulated to be made to her. In these circumstances a reasonable construction of that provision of the contract that the payment of $25 per month should terminate if the wife should remarry is, that such provision should merely terminate when she should remarry and there should no longer be a necessity for it; and it was not intended as a condition, or limitation, or other provision made in an effort to restrain or discourage the wife from entering into a subsequent marriage. There is no agreement upon the part of the wife not to marry again, and no stipulation that she should not marry. The provision is merely expressive of the duration of the term during which the wife should receive the benefits.
In this view, the second question propounded by the Court of Appeals should also be answered in the negative.
Concurrence Opinion
(with whom concurs Gilbert, J.), concurring specially. It appearing from a consideration of that part of the contract brought under review by the questions propounded that the 'agreement to pay the wife a certain sum was a reasonable provision for the support of the wife so long as she should remain unmarried, I do not think that the stipulation that these payments should terminate upon her remarriage, even if it had a tendency to operate as a restraint upon a second marriage of the wife and was therefore illegal and void, should be held to vitiate the entire contract at the instance of the parties bound to make the payments agreed upon as a support for the wifer