Matchin v. Matchin
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
July 30. This was an appeal by a wife, from a sentence of divorce a vinculo matrimonii, by the Common Pleas of Columbia county. The libel charged adultery, with the usual averments of time and circumstances; to maintain which, the libellant adduced the following depositions taken on commission : Clarina H. Erick proved the appellant’s marriage with the appellee, in May, 1840. Samuel Yorks. — I am acquainted with James H. Matchin, and Christiann Matchin, his wife.
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July 30. This was an appeal by a wife, from a sentence of divorce a vinculo matrimonii, by the Common Pleas of Columbia county. The libel charged adultery, with the usual averments of time and circumstances; to maintain which, the libellant adduced the following depositions taken on commission : Clarina H. Erick proved the appellant’s marriage with the appellee, in May, 1840. Samuel Yorks. — I am acquainted with James H. Matchin, and Christiann Matchin, his wife. Dr. Yeoman, Michael Grier, and myself, went to Matchin’s house in the middle of February, 1846, .and found Mrs. Matchin alone with…
1Opinion of the CourtGibson, C. J.
Though we are bound to determine this appeal 'on the depositions sent up with the record, they contain enough to warrant a concurrence in the general belief that the appellant was actually insane; for no woman in her senses, however lost to shame, would apprize her husband’s kinswoman, by whom her confidence was certain to be betrayed, of an assignation with a paramour. But a wife’s insanity, though so absolute as to have effaced from her mind the first lines of conjugal duty, would not be a defence to a libel for adultery, though it would be a defence to an indictment for it. The offence is…
2Cited by42 opinions
- Manley v. ManleySuperior Court of Pennsylvania · 1960
- Commonwealth v. EppsSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1929
- Rech v. RechSuperior Court of Pennsylvania · 1954
- Shoemaker v. ShoemakerSuperior Court of Pennsylvania · 1962
- Bates v. BatesSuperior Court of Pennsylvania · 1943
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