7. If the husband has within five years undergone frequent convictions for crime and has been sentenced in the aggregate to imprisonment for three years or more, leaving his wife habitually without means of support.
8. That within a year previously the respondent has been convicted of having attempted to murder the petitioner, or of having assaulted him or her with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, or that repeatedly during that period the respondent has assaulted and cruelly beaten the petitioner.
Form of Decree.—Divorce decrees are entered, in the first instance, nisi, or provisionally, and cannot be made absolute until after the expiration of three months following the decree nisi.
In Forma Pauperis.—Special provision is made enabling poor persons to prosecute suits for divorce by an interlocutory order in forma pauperis, which relieves the person in whose favour it is granted from certain charges and expenses, but does not furnish him or her with the free services of a solicitor or barrister.
Recent Decisions.—An important divorce decision holds that visits to brothels by a petitioner who seeks a divorce on the ground of his wife’s adultery constitute misconduct conducing to the adultery of the wife and bars the petitioner from a decree, without entering into the question of whether or not adultery was committed by the petitioner in the course of such visits.
However, the fact that a husband has conduced to an act of adultery by his wife is not a bar to him obtaining a divorce based on subsequent acts of adultery.
New South Wales.—The requirements as to age, consent of parents, or of persons standing in loco parentis are the same in this State as throughout the rest of the Commonwealth and have been set forth in the first part of this chapter.
No marriage can be celebrated except by a minister of religion ordinarily officiating as such, whose name, designation and usual residence have been and continue registered in the office of the Registrar-General for Marriages in Sydney or by a district registrar.
Parental consent is not required of persons who have previously been lawfully married and whose former marriage has been dissolved by death or divorce.
A marriage must be attended by two adult witnesses.