Page:Annie Besant, Marriage A Plea for Reform, second edition 1882.djvu/44

 the marriage laws, but the death of the king prevented the proposed reform; the ecclesiastical courts remained as they were, and absolute divorce was unattainable. Natural impatience of a law which separated unhappy married people only to impose celibacy on them, caused occasional applications to be made to Parliament for relief, and a few marriages were thus dissolved under exceptional circumstances. In 1701, a bill was obtained, enabling a petitioner to re-marry, and in 1798, Lord Loughborough's "Orders" were passed. "By these orders, no petition could be presented to the House, unless an official copy of the proceedings, and of a definitive sentence of divorce, a mensâ et thoro, in the ecclesiastical courts, was delivered on oath at the bar of the House at the same time" (Broom's "Comm.," vol. iii. p. 396). After explaining the procedure of the ecclesiastical court, Broom goes on: "A definitive sentence of divorce a mensâ et thoro being thus obtained, the petitioner proceeded to lay his case before the House of Lords in accordance with the Standing Orders before adverted to, and, subject to his proving the case, he obtained a bill divorcing him from the bonds of matrimony, and allowing him to marry again. The provisions of the bill, which was very short, were generally these:—1. The marriage was dissolved. 2. The husband was empowered to marry again. 3. He was given the rights of a husband as to any property of an after-taken wife. 4. The divorced wife was deprived of any right she might have as his widow. 5. Her after-acquired property was secured to her as against the husband from whom she was divorced. In the case of the wife obtaining the bill, similar provisions were made in her favour" (p. 398). In 1857, an Act was passed establishing a Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, and thus a great step forward was taken: this court was empowered to grant a judicial separation—equivalent to the old divorce a mensâ et thoro—in cases of cruelty, desertion for two years and upwards, or adultery on the part of the husband; it was further empowered to grant an absolute divorce with right of re-marriage—equivalent to the old divorce a vinculo matrimonii—in cases of adultery on the part of the wife, or of, on the part of the husband, "incestuous adultery, or of bigamy with adultery, or of rape, or an unnatural crime, or of adultery coupled with such cruelty as would formerly have entitled her to a divorce a mensâ et thoro, or of adultery coupled with desertion, without reasonable excuse, for two years or upwards"