Gaskins

Gentlemen of the Jury: The statute of this state regulating the subject of divorces, authorises thorn to be granted in various cases in which, in a large number of the other states, they are not permitted. Here they are allowed absolutely where the husband, being of sufficient ability to support the wife, neglects so to do, where either party is guilty of habitual intemperance, or extreme cruelty towards, or wilfully deserts the other—causes which, in the majority of the other states, will only authorise a divorce from bed and board. For this reason reported cases of divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty are not very numerous, and these are usually decided by a judge without a jury, in which his conclusions upon the facts are given instead of definitions or rules of law for the instruction of juries; and henee we do not find in adjudicated cases a clear definition of that which constitutes extreme cruelty, and which is exactly applicable to these words as used in our statute, and can be considered as determining that act or combination of acts, which, under its provisions, *383 will authorise a divorce. There is but little difficulty in deciding, whether certain facts do or do…