OGDEN V. OGDEN

3.710881

J. J. Gonriey, Gort. Print, Merb,

Py oy. ' YA q * ORIGINAL | IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Judgment delivered at_..Sydney... on_Thursday, 9th June, 1955.

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ORDER

Appeal

dismissed.

No order as to costs.

JUDGMENT

OGDEN ve __ OGDEN

DIXON C.J.

OGDE: OGDEN

With some misgiving I concur in the view thet this appeal must be dismissed. It is a wife's appeal from a decree for dissolution of marriage on the ground of desertion. The parties were married in 1922, he being 26 years of age and she 25, There were no children of the marriage. About the year 1935 the wife objected to the husband's frequenting the company of another woman with whom he had become acquainted. She was filled with suspicions about their association and with jealousy. In 1936 he left his wife and they remained apart for more than three years. It is said on her behalf with much justification that there was the requisite period of desertion on his part amounting to a ground of divorce. In fact in the present proceeding/that view of the matter she cross-petitioned for dissolution, After the commencement of the period the course of events gave strong support for the wife's suspicions. Indeed in certain proceedings for maintenance that the wife took the husband seemed to admit in his evidence that he was living with the woman, but he afterwards said that it was a mistake and that the association was innocent. In 1939 the parties reunited for about six weeks. The wife imposed or sought to impose a condition that the husband should see no more of the other woman and that he should allow her to accompany her, if he went out at night. At the end of the six weeks he insisted one evening on going out without his wife; she protested in anger 'and said that if he persisted she could not stand it and would have gone before he returned. He did persist and she carried out her threat. He did not on that occasion go to see the other woman, and indeed if his testimony is correct, it would appear that she had been out of the country for some time and had not returned.