A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 3 of 3

by George Elliott Howard

Still further precautions were taken in 1836. In no instance, it is declared, may a divorce be granted unless the persons shall have been bona fide residents of the state for at least twelve months before application. Furthermore, in the case of such residents the sanction of two-thirds of each branch of the legislature is required either for an absolute or for a limited divorce.[131] Five years later the preliminary procedure was changed, and some provision for notice to non-residents was introduced. Application is now to be made "to some justice of the peace, who shall thereupon issue a subpoena directed to some constable or other person, who shall serve the same on the person from whom the divorce is sought." After service and return of the subpoena, either party may, after the lapse of thirty days, proceed to take testimony before a justice of the peace, if they both reside in the same county or city, otherwise by deposition, and transmit it to the legislature at its next annual session. But when the libellee is a non-resident, or is absent from the state, the applicant must give at least three months' notice of his intention to ask the assembly for a divorce, in some newspaper published in the city of Baltimore. Such testimony shall be taken on oath before a justice and transmitted to the legislature as in the case of residents.[132]

The law of 1841 was the last attempt in Maryland to regulate legislative divorce. The efforts of the preceding twelve years to devise checks and provide safeguards were largely unavailing. Division of responsibility between the court and the legislature, whose effects are so well illustrated in the case of Georgia presently to be considered, is pretty sure to result in the removal of all real responsibility. Each successive year produced an increasing crop of divorces. Thirty-one were granted in 1835, and thirty-six in 1837. Occasionally the decree is from bed and board; in most cases it is for absolute dissolution of the marriage bond. Usually it is curtly expressed in a few words of the statute-book. Often the cause is not mentioned; although, after 1830, the details in most instances are doubtless to be found in the judicial papers transmitted to the assembly.[133] In 1842, for the first time, full jurisdiction in divorce cases is bestowed upon the courts. Consequently there is a falling off in the number of legislative decrees; but they nevertheless continue to appear in the session laws until the constitution of 1851 forbids the general assembly to interfere in such matters.[134]

Virginia anticipated Maryland by fifteen years in granting to the superior court of chancery full power to hear and determine suits for absolute and partial divorce. The act of 1827 names the causes for which alone judicial divorces of either kind may be granted, and provides for alimony and custody of the children. But this statute also contemplates the obtaining of divorce a vinculo through resort to the legislature. It is provided that "every person intending to petition the general assembly for a divorce, shall file in the clerk's office of the superior court of laws, for the county in which he or she may reside, a statement of the causes on which the application is founded." At least two months before the next court, notice must be given to the adverse party "by personal service," when a resident in the state; otherwise, by publication for four weeks in "some newspaper printed in the city of Richmond." Thereupon, "without other pleadings in writing," the court "shall cause a jury to be impanelled to ascertain the facts set forth in the said statement; and their verdict shall be recorded;" but the confession of the parties shall not be accepted as evidence at the trial. A certified copy of these proceedings must accompany every petition presented to the legislature; unless a divorce from bed and board shall have been previously granted by the court of chancery, in which case a copy of the record may be substituted.[135]

Under the law of 1827 resort was often made to the general assembly,[136] until in 1848 an act appeared which, after granting to Robert Moran a divorce from his wife Lydia, seeks to abrogate the practice so far as by statute it may be done. "Whereas," runs the preamble, "applications to the legislature for divorces a vinculo matrimonii are becoming frequent, and occupy much time in their consideration, and moreover involve investigations more properly judicial in their nature, and ought, so far as the legislature can do it, [to] be referred to the judicial tribunals of the state;" therefore the courts are granted the same full jurisdiction in absolute divorce which they already possessed in petition for separation from bed and board.[137] This law would not necessarily have put an end to the evil; for the acts of one legislature cannot bind those of another; but that was soon effected by the constitution of 1851, which deprived the assembly of all authority to hear divorce petitions.[138]

For a few years North Carolina tried a still different plan for sharing responsibility between the courts and the legislature. By the act of 1814 full authority to grant separation from bed and board, for any of the causes therein named, with alimony to the wife, is conferred upon the superior court. The same tribunal may also try petitions for full divorce, dismissing the petition, dissolving the "nuptial ties or bonds of matrimony," or declaring the contract null and void, as the case demands; but it is especially provided that "no judgment, sentence, or decree of final or absolute divorce" shall be "valid until ratified by the general assembly."[139] This condition was, however, removed in 1818;[140] and ten years thereafter legislative divorce was entirely abolished, so far as it was possible to accomplish it by statute. Because "the numerous applications for divorce and alimony, annually presented to the general assembly, consume a considerable portion of time in their examination, and consequently retard the investigation of more important (sic) subjects of legislation;" and because "such applications might be adjudicated by other tribunals with much less expenditure to the state, and more impartial justice to individuals;" it is therefore enacted that the superior courts of law shall have "sole and original jurisdiction" in both kinds of divorce. From this act it may be inferred that the legislature had granted divorces on petitions which had not gone through the courts and come up to it for ratification; and for causes other than those named in the statute.[141] A few years later, by a constitutional amendment ratified in 1835, the assembly was deprived of the "power to grant a divorce or secure alimony in any individual case;" and the same prohibition appears in the constitution of 1876.[142]

Until constitutionally prohibited in 1852-53, legislative divorce also existed in Missouri.[143] The law of 1833 endeavors to restrict the action of the assembly to cases for whose trial "before the judiciary" the law has not provided; and it forbids entirely the hearing of any petition when the causes for it "shall have accrued since the next two months preceding the sitting of the legislature." At the same time notice to the opposite party is made essential. In the case of residents, two months' written notification is required, service to be proved by affidavit. If the libellee is a non-resident, publication in a newspaper for at least three weeks successively will suffice.[144]

The government report shows several divorces in South Carolina for the year 1869-70; and these were probably granted by the legislature, for no divorce statute then existed.[145]

As early as 1803 the statutes of the Mississippi Territory make provision for both kinds of divorce by judicial sentence; but resort to the legislature is not prohibited.[146] Later, by the constitution of 1817 and the laws thereunder enacted, it is declared that "divorces from the bonds of matrimony shall not be granted, but in cases provided for by law, by suit in chancery;" but it is especially provided that "no decree for such divorce shall have effect until the same shall be sanctioned by two-thirds of both branches of the general assembly."[147] This unwise condition—in substance so often appearing in the enactments of the South—seems to have lasted only until 1832, when it was omitted in the constitution framed in that year. In the meantime the legislature had found plenty of work to do. The session laws of 1833, for example, contain nine divorce decrees, passed probably just before the new constitution went into effect.[148]

Alabama, as a part of the Mississippi Territory, was, of course, affected by the act of 1803 above cited.[149] Resort to the legislature may have been practiced from the beginning. At any rate, during the existence of the Alabama Territory—from 1817 to 1819—ten divorces were thus obtained.[150] The people seem to have been so much in love with the custom that it is sanctioned, on the usual co-operative plan, by the constitution of 1819. The sixth article of that instrument requires that all decrees of the courts granting absolute dissolution of wedlock shall be confirmed by two-thirds of each house of the assembly, precisely in the same form as by the constitution of Mississippi two years earlier.[151] The act of the next year, conferring jurisdiction in such cases on the circuit courts and defining the causes of divorce, directs that the record of evidence made by the court in each suit shall be sent to the speaker of the house of representatives, who is to open and have it read before the members.[152]