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Autorité et obligation de rendre des comptes · Claim record

Le 19 octobre 1908, la Superior Court of Pennsylvania a confirmé le jugement rendu sur le verdict d’un jury en faveur de Maria F. Russell contre son mari, au motif d’outrages à sa personne. La cour a décrit la conduite de celui-ci comme “one of continual arrogant domination”, et a constaté qu’il l’avait traitée comme une domestique devant les serviteurs, qu’il avait laissé entendre qu’elle n’avait pas toute sa raison et qu’il lui avait fait craindre une procédure destinée à faire examiner sa santé mentale. Le jugement prononçait une séparation, non la dissolution du mariage : l’Annuaire 1975 en cite les termes, qui ordonnaient que les parties “be separated from bed and board”.

Claim ID claim-authority-russell-v-russell-1908Concerns 19 octobre 1908Contexte
Contexte · 19 octobre 1908 Vérifié

Le 19 octobre 1908, la Superior Court of Pennsylvania a confirmé le jugement rendu sur le verdict d’un jury en faveur de Maria F. Russell contre son mari, au motif d’outrages à sa personne. La cour a décrit la conduite de celui-ci comme “one of continual arrogant domination”, et a constaté qu’il l’avait traitée comme une domestique devant les serviteurs, qu’il avait laissé entendre qu’elle n’avait pas toute sa raison et qu’il lui avait fait craindre une procédure destinée à faire examiner sa santé mentale. Le jugement prononçait une séparation, non la dissolution du mariage : l’Annuaire 1975 en cite les termes, qui ordonnaient que les parties “be separated from bed and board”. Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 19 octobre 19081975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, 1975

Position de l’organisation ou explication ultérieure : L’Annuaire 1975 cite le récit de Russell lui-même : “The decree of the court was not divorce, but separation … My wife's charge was cruelty, but the only cruelty put in evidence was my refusal on one occasion to give her a kiss when she had requested it.” Il est exact qu’aucun divorce absolu n’a été prononcé ; l’arrêt publié décrit les éléments de preuve de façon très différente.

Afficher les preuves (2 sources)
Document public officiel Vérifié

Superior Court of Pennsylvania, “Russell v. Russell, Appellant, 37 Pa. Super. 348”

19 octobre 1908 · pp.348-354 · Orlady, J. · Superior Court of Pennsylvania

“His course of conduct toward his wife evidenced such insistent egotism and extravagant self-praise that it would be manifest to the jury that his conduct towards her was one of continual arrogant domination, that would necessarily render the life of any sensitive Christian woman a burden and make her condition intolerable. The indignities offered to her in treating her as a menial in the presence of servants, intimating that she was of unsound mind, and that she was under the influence of designing and wicked persons fully warranted her withdrawal from his house, and justified her fear that he intended to further humiliate her by a threat to resort to legal proceedings to test her sanity.”

The appeal (No. 202, April Term 1908) was brought by Charles T. Russell from the decree of the Court of Common Pleas No. 1, Allegheny County (June Term 1903, No. 459), entered on a jury's verdict for Maria F. Russell. The Superior Court affirmed. The opinion also records that Russell said of his wife that “she is a woman of high intellectual qualities and of perfect moral character”, and quotes his own letter: “I conclude that I am adapted to no one, and that no one is adapted to me, except the Lord.”

Copie archivée ou autre copie

Note de provenance et de vérification

Note sur la fiabilité. The full official-reporter text was downloaded and read. The libel charged “indignities to the person”; the reporter’s syllabus is headed “Divorce — Cruel and barbarous treatment — Mental suffering — Evidence”, the head matter records the appeal as being “from decree of C. P. No. 1, Allegheny Co., June T., 1903, No. 459, granting divorce in case of Maria F. Russell, by her next friend, Emma H. Russell, v. Charles T. Russell”, and the opinion speaks of evidence sufficient “to warrant them in finding the facts essential to a lawful dissolution of the marriage tie”. This report does not itself describe the decree as one from bed and board; that wording comes from the decree as quoted in the 1975 Yearbook. The opinion makes no mention of the “jellyfish” testimony or of any allegation of adultery. One OCR break in the reporter’s text (“fully warranted hex-withdrawal from his house”) has been repaired to “her withdrawal” in the quotation above.

Provenance de la numérisation. Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library) static edition of the official reporter, Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports vol. 37.

Corroboré par. src-ctr-yb-1975-p67-separation

Notes. The head matter records the argument date as 7 May 1908 and the judgment as “Affirmed”, and names the trial judge as MacFarlane, J. The 1975 Yearbook names the trial judge as “Justice Collier”; the discrepancy is unresolved and neither name should be published as settled.

Date de consultation. 19 septembre 2026 · Identifiant de la source. src-ctr-pasuper-1908-1019-russell-v-russell

Publication primaire des Témoins de Jéhovah Vérifié

1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, “Part 1—United States of America”

1975 · pp.67-68 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

“Without notice, she separated from him in 1897, after nearly eighteen years of marriage. ... In June 1903 Mrs. Russell filed in the Court of Common Pleas at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a suit for legal separation. During April 1906 the case came up for trial before Justice Collier and a jury. Nearly two years later, on March 4, 1908, a decree was issued that was styled “In Divorce.” The language of the decree is: “It is now ordered, adjudged and decreed that Maria F. Russell, the Libellant; and Charles T. Russell, the Respondent, be separated from bed and board.” ... This was a legalized separation and there never was an absolute divorce, as some erroneously have held.”

The Society's fullest published account of the marriage. It also quotes Russell's own answer given at Dublin in 1911: “I am not divorced from my wife. The decree of the court was not divorce, but separation, granted by a sympathetic jury, which declared that we would both be happier separated. My wife's charge was cruelty, but the only cruelty put in evidence was my refusal on one occasion to give her a kiss when she had requested it.”

Source officielle

Note de provenance et de vérification

Note sur la fiabilité. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library; the page markers 67 and 68 bracket the passage and the document’s citation code is yb75 pp. 34-109. The Yearbook is correct that no absolute divorce was granted, and it is the source of the decree’s own wording. Its characterisation of the evidence differs materially from the Superior Court’s description of that evidence.

Corroboré par. src-ctr-pasuper-1908-1019-russell-v-russell

Date de consultation. 19 septembre 2026 · Identifiant de la source. src-ctr-yb-1975-p67-separation

Page de l’affirmation Corriger ou mettre à jour

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/fr/evidence/claim-authority-russell-v-russell-1908/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.