[180] For natural and incurable impotency of body at the time of entering into the matrimonial contract; as also for idiocy and bigamy.
[181] Act of Feb. 17, 1827: Acts of Gen. Assembly (1826-27), 21, 22. Cf. same law in Supp. to Rev. Code (1833), 222, 223.
[182] Act of March 17, 1841: Acts of the Assembly (1840-41), 78, 79. The court may declare contracts void on the grounds named in 1827, "or for any other cause for which marriage is annulled by the ecclesiastical law" (78).
[183] Act of March 18, 1848: Acts of Assembly (1847-48), 165-67.
[184] Va. Code (1849), 561. Probably the abandonment or desertion is for a time less than five years, as the latter period is sufficient for a divorce a vinculo: Code (1860), 530, and note. On joint application of the parties and due evidence of reconciliation, a decree of separation may be revoked by the same court granting it; and when three years have elapsed without reconciliation after such a decree, the court may grant a full divorce: Acts (1895-96), 103; modified by ibid. (1902-3), 87, 98.
[185] This cause was added by the act of March 23, 1872: Acts of the Assembly (1871-72), 418, 419.
[186] Code of Va. (1887), 561: Acts of the Assembly (1852-53), 47, 48. The term of desertion was reduced from five to three years by Acts (1893-94), 425.
[187] Code of West Va. (1891), 612, 613; ibid. (1900), 660-62. It is provided that "a charge of prostitution made by the husband against the wife falsely shall be deemed cruel treatment, within the meaning of this section."—Code (1900), 662. The penalties for bigamy do not extend to a person forming a new marriage when the husband or wife has been absent seven years and not heard from: ibid., 971.
[188] As early as 1800 separate maintenance is secured to the wife in certain cases. It is enacted "that any court of quarter sessions or district court, shall be vested with jurisdiction to hear and determine applications from wives against their husbands for alimony, in cases where the husband has, or may hereafter desert or abandon his wife for the space of one year successively, or where he lives in open avowed adultery with another woman for the space of six months, and in cases of cruel, inhuman, and barbarous treatment."—Digest of the Stat. Laws of Ky. (1834), I, 121. Such cruel treatment warrants alimony even when life is not endangered: 2 J. J. Marshall, 324; but not divorce: ibid., 322.
"Before the passage of the above act, the chancellor had power to grant alimony, and since the statute it may be decreed in cases not embraced by it."—Digest (1834), I, 121, note. "After a decree for alimony, the power of the husband over the wife shall cease;" and she may use such alimony, and acquire and dispose of any property, "without being subject to the control, molestation, or hindrance" of the husband, as if she were a feme sole: ibid., I, 122. The two kinds of common-law divorce, in canonical sense, were originally recognized in Kentucky: Humphrey, Compendium of the Common Law in Force in Ky. (1822), 135.