Miller v. Miller

DOWLING,/.,

One of the oldest jokes from the ranks of academia concerns the student who was asked to write an examination essay on 17th-century English literature, and who threw in the bon mot: “John Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died, and he wrote Paradise Regained.” In the instant case, however, the death of a spouse has led to nothing more Edenic than pure confusion; not least of all because there was, *76initially at least, no absolute certainty that the deceased lady was the legally recognized partner of her survivor.

The defendant, Frederick Miller, was married in 1955 to his…