South Carolina Law Review Volume 20 Issue 5 Article 1 1968 Recrimination: An Examination of the Recrimination Doctrine Marvin M. Moore University of Akron College of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/sclr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Marvin M. Moore, Recrimination: An Examination of the Recrimination Doctrine, 20 S. C. L. Rev. 685 (1968). This Article is brought to you by the Law Reviews and Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in South Carolina Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Moore: Recrimination: An Examination of the Recrimination Doctrine RECRIMINATION AN EXAMINATION OF THE RECRIMINATION DOCTRINE MARVIN M. MOORE* I. INTRODUCTION Under the doctrine of recrimination a defendant in a di- vorce action establishes a good defense by showing that the complainant is himself guilty of misconduct constituting a ground for divorce.' In other words "[I]f both parties have a right to a divorce, neither of the parties has." 2 This doc- trine is capable of producing some remarkable results, as the following three cases illustrate: Mathewson v. Mathew- son,3 Dunn v. Dunn4 and Wells v. Wells.5 The parties in the Mathewson case married in 1853 and co- habited until 1861, when respondent (husband) left petitioner and enlisted in the Union Army. Except for two letters which she received shortly after respondent left, petitioner heard nothing from or about respondent for twenty-seven years, and during this period she assumed that he was killed in the Civil War.