It is first necessary to consider the grounds for dissolution of marriage as the law now stands, so that we may more readily appreciate the sweeping bill introduced by the noble Earl. The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857, provides that it shall be lawful for any husband to pre sent a petition to the Court praying that his marriage may be dissolved on the ground that his wife has, since the celebration, been guilty of adultery; and the wife may present a petition because of incestuous adultery, or bigamy with adultery, or rape, or bestiality, or adultery coupled with cruelty, or for adultery coupled with desertion for two years or upwards. Earl Russell said he proposed in his bill to extend the grounds on which a divorce might be granted to five. He would grant it for cruelty, the fact that the other party was undergoing penal servitude for a term of over three years, that the other party was found to be of unsound mind under the Lunacy Act of 1890, that the parties had lived apart for three years and did not intend to resume marital relations, and that during three years the parties had lived apart, and the other party concurred in the petition. In all cases he would put women on an equality with men. He also proposed to alter the procedure of the Divorce Court by abolishing the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and assimilating it to that of the King's Bench Division of the High Court. Another clause in the bill proposed to give a jurisdiction in divorce to the County Courts where the united income of husband and wife did not exceed five hundred pounds a year. He proposed to do away with the decree nisi and the interval of six months, and would make every divorce effective from the time that the period of appeal had passed. Some of their Lordships might regard the provisions of the bill as novel, and even unheard of, but that was not so. In the course of the debates on the Divorce Bills of 1856 and 1857, nearly all the suggestions he now made were made, and, as to the proposal to abolish the present judicial separation, it was supported by Lord Palmerston. The proposals of the bill were not so novel as they might at first sight appear to be. One of the clauses of the bill provided that divorce might be granted after one year's separation, when both parties concurred in the petition. The Legislature
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should, so far as possible, place the parties in the position which they occupied before, when they discovered that they had made a mistake. Clause 12 of the bill provided that where the total joint annual income of a husband and wife did not exceed £500, a petition, for dissolution of marriage might be presented to the County Court of the district in which either the peti tioner or the respondent dwelt or carried on business, the judge of a County Court to have all the powers of a judge of the Probate, Di vorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice. This was no new proposal, for it was embodied in a bill introduced by the Government in 1857. Clause 17 provided for legitimation of a child by the subsequent mar riage of its parents. This country stood alone amongst civilized nations in refusing this relief. The noble Earl spoke for an hour and a half, and some idea of the contempt with which the speech was received can be gathered from the fact that the Lord Chancellor, instead of calling on Lord Halifax, who was to lead the opposition, took the unusual course of inviting the House to reject the bill. His speech, and the voting, occupied less than twenty minutes. The follow ing is an extract from his short, but effective speech : — "The Lord Chancellor — My Lords, I very much regret that such a bill as this has been in troduced into your Lordships' house. I cannot help thinking that if the custom, which recently obtained in the House of Commons, requiring leave to be given to introduce a bill, prevailed in this House, no leave ever would have been given for the introduction of this bill. In the noble Lord's voluminous observations we have heard a great many things which might be the subject of debate, but the main provision of the bill, the first clause, shows that practically this bill is one for the abolition of the institution of marriage. That in itself is enough, I think, to prevent the discussion of the bill. I should be very sorry to think that in this House the question whether marriage should continue to exist in this country should be considered a subject for debate [cheers]; and, to prove that this is so, it is only necessary to read to your Lordships the following section of clause 1 : ' That, during the year preceding the presentation of the peti
