Murray v. Murray’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This statute does not mean that divorce from the bonds of matrimony may be decreed only when it is shown that the husband has been guilty of some act of physical violence to the wife which in and of itself endangers her life. It does not mean that the complaining wife, before she is entitled to invoke this provision of the statute and obtain the relief which it affords, must be able to show that the husband was guilty of some physical violence which, operating upon her person, had, in and of itself, a tendency to endanger her life. * * * Life may be endangered by treatment though it involves no physical violence. It takes more than the physical body to make up the entity known as a human being. The mind can grasp the possibility of inhuman treatment that does not endanger life. Whether it does or not depends, not only upon the physical, but upon the moral, mental, or spiritual quality of the one' made subject to the treatment. Some people are stoical and indifferent, in a degree, to certain kinds of treatment. To others, more sensitive and delicate in their organization, the treatment is intolerable, weighs heavily upon the heart, and preys upon the mind. This, reacting upon the body, endangers the life of the body. As some poet has said: ‘Killed by unutterable unkindness, worse than a life of blows.’ * * * The relationship between husband and wife is very close. Each rightfully looks to and depends upon the other for companionship of heart and mind, and each is pledged .to ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Alberhasky v. Alberhasky