[1016] Swift, System of the Laws, I, 193.
[1017] See Public Statute Laws of the State of Conn. (Hartford, 1808), I, 236, editorial note 1; also Swift, Digest, I, 24, 25.
[1018] Conn. Col. Rec. (Oct. 18, 1677), II, 328: "It is ordered, by this court that noe bill of divorce shall be granted to any man or woman lawfully married but in case of adultery, fradulent contract, or willful desertion for three years with totall neglect of duty, or seven years' providentiall absence being not heard of after due enquiry made and certifyed, such party shall be counted as legally dead to the other party; in all which cases a bill of divorce may be granted by the Court of Assistants to the aggrieved party who may then lawfully marry or be marryed to any other."
[1019] Acts and Laws (New London, 1715), 28; ibid. (New London, 1750), 43; ibid. (New Haven, 1769), 43. Almost the only change during the period mentioned in the text is the substitution of "superior court" for "court of assistants." Cf. Pub. Stat. Laws (1808), 236 n. 1. As in Massachusetts, the divorced wife is to have a part of the husband's estate, not exceeding one-third thereof: Acts and Laws (1769), 146.
[1020] Act of June 6, 1843: Public Acts (1843), 20; Revision of the Stat. of the State of Conn. (Hartford, 1849), 274.
[1021] Swift, Digest, I, 21.
[1022] This is the view of Swift, Digest, I, 21, 22, referring to Blackstone, Commentaries, III, 94. Thus a decision of the Connecticut superior court of errors seems to limit "fraud" as a cause of divorce to "corporal imbecility": 1 Day, Reports, 111. But in 1848, at the August term of the superior court for Litchfield county, "it was held ... upon a consultation with judges of the Supreme Court, that where a woman at the time of her marriage was pregnant with a bastard child, and fraudulently concealed the fact from her husband, this was a sufficient cause for a divorce."—Dutton and Cowdrey's Revision of Swift's Digest (New Haven, 1851), I, 22; citing 9 Conn. Rep., 321; and for New York, where a similar practice prevailed, 4 Johnson, Chancery Rep., 343. In the earlier period doubtless a still broader meaning was given to the term "fradulent contract": see the examples for illustration in Swift, Digest, I, 22.
[1023] Swift, System of the Laws, I, 193.
[1024] Conn. Col. Rec., I, 275 (May 17, 1655).
[1025] Ibid., 301 (Aug. 12, 1657).