CASE NO.

58

ELOISA GOITIA VS. JOSE CAMPOS RUEDA GR NO. 11263 NOVEMBER 21, 1916

FACTS: this is an action for support by Eloisa Goitia against Campos Rueda.

Eloisa and Campos were legally married and thereafter lived together for about a month before
petitioner returned to her parent’s home because of the reason that the defendant demanded her to
perform “unchaste and lascivious acts” on her genitals; defendant made other lewd demands; and
defendant maltreated petitioner by word and deed on the ground that the latter refused to do any of
the defendant’s demands other than legal and valid cohabitation. Petitioner filed an action against her
husband for support outside their conjugal domicile. The trial court ruled in favour of respondent and
stated that Goitia could not compel her husband to support her except in the conjugal home unless it is
by virtue of a judicial decree granting her separation or divorce from respondent. Goitia filed a motion
for review.

Issue: WON Goitia can compel her husband to support her outside the conjugal abode.

Held: Yes. The husband was held liable to support his wife. Art. 143 of the Civil Code provides that the
husband who is obliged to support the wife, may fulfil the obligations either by maintining her in his own
home at his own option. However, this option given by law is not absolute. This obligation is founded
not so much on the express or implied terms of the contract of marriage as on the natural and legal duty
of the husband; an obligation, the enforcement of which is of such vital concern to the state itself that
the laws will not permit him to terminate it by his own wrongful acts in driving his wife to seek
protection in the parental home. A judgment for separate maintenance is not due and payable either as
damages or as a penalty; nor is a debt in the strict legal sense of the term, but rather a judgment calling
for the performance of a duty made specific by the mandate of the sovereign. This is done from
necessity and with a view to preserve the public peace and purity of the wife; as where the husband
makes so base demands upon his wife and indulges in the habit of assaulting her. In the case at bar, the
wife was forced to leave the conjugal abode because of the lewd designs and physical assault of the
husband, she can therefore claim support from the husband for separate maintenance even outside the
conjugal home. The pro tanto separation resulting from a decree for separate support is not an
impeachment of that public policy by which marriage is regarded as so sacred and inviolable in its
nature; it is merely stronger policy overruling a weaker one; and except in so far only as such separation
is tolerated as a means of preserving the public peace and morals may be considered, it does not in any
respect whatever impair the marriage contract of for any purpose place the wife in the situation of feme
sole.

PREPARED BY: RUCHELLE ANN A. GALAMGAM