The Divorce Papers: A Novel (12 page)

No. 55-228
Martins v. Martins
Supreme Court of Narragansett
224 Nar. 887 (1955)

Cutler, Ch.J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

The issue before this Court goes to the heart of marriage and to the proper role of the State in regulating domestic relations between a husband and his wife. We have been asked by the parties here to determine the support obligations a husband owes the woman he is married to and living with. It is an issue with enormous ramifications bearing on the autonomy of the marital household and the privacy of the marital relationship.

Leo and Letitia Martins have been married for 39 years. They live three miles outside Pemberton in Berks County. Mr. Martins is 68 years old, his wife is 62. They have two grown children who are married and living in other states. Three years ago, Mr. Martins retired from National Construction, where he worked for 44 years as an electrician. Mrs. Martins has never worked outside the home. Mr. Martins receives an annual pension of $5,200 from National and an additional $2,600 from the Social Security Administration. His savings account at the Central Bay Bank has $9,000, earning 3% annual interest.

The Martins live in their own home purchased for $3,000 the year they were married. Title is in Mr. Martins’s name. He owns it free and clear, the mortgage having been paid off more than 15 years ago. Built in 1905, it is a two-story dwelling with an erratic coal furnace and an outside latrine, both of which are original to the house.

Most of the features of the house date to its construction, the notable exceptions being electrical lighting on the first floor and hot water, which is heated by a wood-burning kitchen stove, purchased at a sale close-out in 1930, six months after the Crash. There are no electrical outlets. They do not have a refrigerator—they have an icebox, perhaps the last extant one in Berks County—and their only radio is a shortwave radio constructed by their son for a Boy Scout badge. By current American standards, the house is primitive. Its current value, owing to its state of disrepair, is less than the original purchase price, though the land it sits on, 17 acres of prime farmland, was recently valued at $8,500.

The Martins do not farm the land but rent out the larger fields to a neighboring farmer. The rents bring in an additional $1,200 a year. Mrs. Martins raises chickens for their eggs, which she sells from a farm stand on the property. Her monthly net earnings from the eggs are approximately $20, which constitute her only discretionary income. Over the years, she has saved $1,400, which she keeps in a savings account, earning 3.5% interest, at Union Bank.

The furnishings are in keeping with the house. The marital bed, now occupied only by Mr. Martins, was purchased by the couple the year they married. The other furnishings were bought at fire sales and local auction houses during the Depression.

In 1952, Mrs. Martins underwent abdominal surgery, which was paid for under Mr. Martins’s Major Medical Blue Cross policy. Through his union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Mr. Martins pays $10 a month for this policy, which covers both him and his wife. Their other expenses for medical care, except for their spectacles, which Mr. Martins buys for both of them, have been negligible. Neither of the Martinses has visited a dentist in the last 15 years.

Mr. Martins owns a 1940 Buick. He does the maintenance on the vehicle. On Sundays, he drives Mrs. Martins to Bethesda Methodist Church for Sabbath worship. Twice a month, he drives her to the local A&P to buy groceries. At Christmastime, he drives her to Massachusetts so that she can visit with their daughter and son. She stays a week with each. Mr. Martins does not participate in these visits, not being on speaking terms with either of his children.

Other than her egg money, Mrs. Martins has no income of any sort of her own. For the last several years, during her annual visit to Massachusetts, her daughter has bought her either a pair of shoes or a dress. Mrs. Martins owns one coat, which is more than 15 years old, and one purse of indeterminate vintage. Twice a year, winter and summer, Mr. Martins gives Mrs. Martins $20 and takes her to the Salvation Army Thrift Store to purchase clothes, including undergarments and sleepwear.

Mrs. Martins moved out of the marital bedroom five years ago and now sleeps in the bedroom formerly occupied by their children. She has repeatedly asked her husband to make improvements in the house and to buy her clothes. He has consistently refused. They have not been to a motion picture or other entertainment palace in more than 12 years. They have not taken a vacation in 25 years. They do not belong to any clubs or benevolent associations and do not visit with friends or entertain in their own home but appear to live parallel, solitary lives.

Mrs. Martins is a conscientious housekeeper and homemaker. Her domestic duties are heavy and onerous, owing to the absence of such modern conveniences as a washing machine, clothes dryer, and vacuum cleaner. Despite a bad back, she spends more than 50 hours a week cleaning and cooking, and it is only through her efforts, which might be fairly likened to Hercules’s labors in the Augean stables, that the couple is kept from living in absolute squalor. Mr. Martins does no work at all around the house or garden, having declared to his wife that he is in retirement.

In September 1953, Mrs. Martins, at the urging of her children, brought suit against her husband in Narragansett Superior Court to compel him to buy a new furnace, install an inside toilet, and purchase for her a new coat, hat, scarf, and overshoes. She also asked the Court to order him to pay her an allowance of $20 a month for personal items and expenses. The Superior Court granted her request and ordered Mr. Martins to pay his wife a single lump sum of $1,500 for the purchase and installation of a new furnace and toilet and $4 a week spending money. The Appellate Court affirmed. We reverse.

In
Dupuis v. Dupuis
, 202 Nar. 576 (1933), a wife sued her husband for failure to provide her with household goods and amenities. Although the circumstances of her existence were not so grim as those recounted here, they are similar enough for us to recognize its ruling as the governing precedent. Mrs. Dupuis wanted money to install a new refrigerator in place of a 19th-century icebox, to purchase new bedclothes and linens, and to buy a new sofa, the old one having collapsed. She also asked the Court to order her husband to repair the family automobile, which had two missing side windows and a broken heater. The Court rejected her suit and set out the rule, which today we apply again.

As in
Dupuis
, we too deplore the miserliness of the husband/breadwinner, but personal feelings cannot provide the governing standard. While Mrs. Martins has fled the marital bedroom, she has remained beneath the marital roof and expressed no wish or interest in obtaining either a legal separation or divorce. Nor for that matter has Mr. Martins, and there is no evidence that conjugal rupture is the reason for his iron grasp on the purse strings or her suit to loose it. Minimal as it is, Mr. Martins has provided his wife with adequate food, shelter, and clothing and reasonable medical care. So long as their marriage continues and so long as he continues to provide to his wife these bare “necessities of existence,” the Court will not interfere with their domestic financial arrangements. In accord
Commonwealth v. George
, 358 Pa. 118, 56 A.2d 228 (1948);
McGuire v. McGuire
, 157 Neb. 226, 59 N.W.2d 336 (1953).

There is hardly a married couple in this country who does not have disagreements over money. In the absence of proof of neglect or desertion, the Court must leave them to their own devices. The sanctity of marriage demands no less; as the State will not intrude into a couple’s bedroom or bathroom, so it must not take over the checkbook. The case is reversed and remanded.

Parisier, J., Lawler, J., Bauer, J., Pritchard, J., Gordon, J., and Cabolis, J., join this opinion.

* * *

Narragansett Statutes

Title 33 of the Narragansett Code, Sections 801ff.

Dissolution of Marriage, Annulment, and Legal Separation

Sec. 832. Alimony (also known as Maintenance or Spousal Support).

The Narragansett Family Court may order either of the parties to pay alimony (also known as maintenance or spousal support) to the other.
In determining whether alimony shall be awarded,
and the duration and amount of the award,
the court shall consider the length of the marriage, the causes for the dissolution,
legal separation, or annulment
of the marriage, the age, health, station, occupation, earning capacity, amount and sources of income, vocational skills, employability, property, liabilities, and needs of each of the parties, and the opportunity of each for future acquisition of capital assets and income.

Sec. 834. Parents’ obligation for maintenance of minor child.

(a)
The parents of a minor child of the marriage shall maintain the child according to their respective abilities.

(b) If there is an unmarried child of the marriage who has attained the age of eighteen (18), is a full-time high school student, and resides with a parent, the parents shall maintain the child according to their respective abilities until the child completes the twelfth grade or attains the age of nineteen (19), whichever first occurs.

(c) In determining the respective abilities of the parents to provide maintenance,
the court shall consider the age, health, station, occupation, earning capacity, amount and sources of income, property, vocational skills, and employability of each of the parents, and the age, health, station, occupation, educational status and expectation, amount and sources of income, vocational skills, employability, property, and needs of the child.

Chagrin

Maggie—

I am so embarrassed. I wrote a rambling, incoherent memo on the divorce to David, and he blasted me for “free-associating.” He told me to “get a grip.” I don’t know how I’m going to face him. I feel like such a jerk. I’m so used to writing to Joe, who’s tolerant of my style—his own being not so different. Joe and I write memos that are the written equivalent of thinking aloud. It works for us. David actually said I should think before I write. Another reason to hate civil litigation. I imagined this assignment would be demoralizing but not in this particularly humiliating way. Every time I think about it, my stomach turns over.

I’ve only seen Harry once in the last week, and only for a quick coffee on Wednesday; our schedules are not compatible—no one’s schedule is compatible with mine at the moment. He did send me an email, however. There is a fabulous economy to his wooing style. It works for me. The Trilling case is taking all my time, but I still have to do this damn divorce. (That free-association memo took over an hour, whatever David thinks.) I billed 70 hours last week. (I actually worked 85 hours last week—it’s never all billable—and last Thursday I put in 20 hours.) If I keep up at this level, I’ll bill 3,000 in the year. This has to stop. This is New Salem, for heaven’s sake, not New York.

I’ve emailed Joe and David to say I needed the coming weekend off. I begin to regret I introduced David to email. Last weekend he sent me two. My plan is to go to your opening on Friday and then sleep for the next two days—or at least stay in bed. I wonder if I’ll have a sleepover. Another thing to give me a jittery stomach. It must be nice to be married. Is it?

Maman’s coming in Thursday night, by herself. Jake has to work Friday, patients. I understand: I’d be annoyed if my shrink took off for a long weekend. All of August is bad enough. He sends his regrets. I’m thinking of inviting David to have lunch with me and Maman on Friday, instead of apologizing. What do you think? I don’t think he knows who she is. He’s never said anything. Maybe he’s never heard of her. (Is that possible?) He probably doesn’t read mysteries—though I thought everyone smart read mysteries.

What do you think?

Love,

S.

Hello

Sweet Sophie—Where are you? Why aren’t you here?

Harry

Dear Sophie—

Just apologize to David, straight out. Tell him you’re sorry about the memo. Explain it as a bad habit you’ve fallen into doing criminal law. Tell him all the cowboys do it. Tell him it’s another reason you shouldn’t be doing this divorce. Then swear it will never happen again and it will be behind you. From everything you’ve ever said about David, he’s already moved on.

You should invite David to lunch with your mother. I’d like to see those two together—the gods of your life squaring off. Maybe they’ll spontaneously combust in each other’s presence.

The cast party will be at the Rink. Bring your mother—or not. Maybe not. Drama students tend to misbehave dramatically. There might be some things going on that she should be shielded from—for your sake, not hers. It’s an insider’s party. And I don’t think you want to introduce her to Harry quite yet.

I can’t say I’d recommend marriage across the board—having seen some pretty rotten ones—but being married to Matt is better than anything I can think of, anything I can imagine. He’s wonderful. He not only puts up with me—and I know I’m a piece of work—he loves me the way I am. I’m crazy about him. Caveat: he is not perfect, but I never have wanted to shoot him more than once a week. That may change; after all, we’re still newlyweds.

I’m so tired. I couldn’t remember my lines tonight. I’ve heard that some NY people will be in the audience on Friday, including Juliet Taylor, Woody Allen’s casting agent. Talk about stomach problems. I haven’t eaten in two days.

Courage, ma chere.

Love,

Maggie