Commonwealth v. Ham

This is a complaint under the St. of 1885, c. 176, charging the defendant with unreasonably neglecting to provide for the support of his wife. He set up that his neglect to do so was not unreasonable, in view of her conduct, and charged her with various breaches of her marriage duty, and with having declared that she would not live with him. In rebuttal, the defendant’s charges were contradicted, and two records also were put in, subject to the defendant’s exceptions. The first of these was a decree of the Probate Court upon a petition by the wife *486for separate maintenance, declaring that the…