id="FNanchor_53_53"/>[53]

The first word in the history of divorce legislation for Vermont appears in the records of the "assumption" period. In 1779 the "representatives of the freemen" authorize the superior court to grant dissolution of the bond of marriage for the same four causes allowed at that time by the Connecticut laws, but by implication only the aggrieved person is permitted to remarry.[54] This restriction does not appear in the statutes enacted after the attainment of statehood. By these the supreme court may grant either spouse a decree for impotence, adultery, intolerable severity, three years' wilful desertion with total neglect of duty, or for the usual term of long absence unheard of.[55] The same grounds are retained in 1805, but with one important modification. In the case of "intolerable severity" it is left optional with the court whether the decree shall be from bed and board or from the marriage bond.[56] This provision, however, was short-lived, for it seems to have been repealed in 1807.[57] The number of causes of divorce a vinculo in 1839 has increased to six, but one old ground—impotence has given place to two new ones—actual confinement on a criminal sentence for three years or more, and gross, wanton, and cruel neglect of the husband to provide when he is able.[58] By the existing law the same six causes are expressly recognized.[59] But the statute contemplates divorce on still other grounds; for it is provided that libels for causes other than those named shall be tried in the county where the persons or one of them resides.[60] The last word of the period is retrogressive, decrees from bed and board being restored after an interval of almost exactly one hundred years. By the act of November 24, 1896, such separations, "forever or for a limited time," are authorized, as in Rhode Island, "for any of the causes for which a divorce from the bond of matrimony may be declared."[61] Jurisdiction is now vested in the county courts, each held by an assigned judge of the supreme court, who may try questions of fact as well as of law.[62]

Very naturally the first divorce legislation of Maine is based largely upon the contemporary laws of Massachusetts; and her policy in this regard since the attainment of statehood in 1820 has developed on lines parallel to those followed by the parent commonwealth, although there are some interesting divergences in matters of detail. The statutes of 1821 embody the Massachusetts law of 1786, together with such subsequent legislation as was still in force. Jurisdiction is vested in the supreme judicial court. Divorce from the bond of marriage is allowed for the same two causes named in that act. Separation from bed and board for cruelty, utter desertion, and neglect to provide is authorized, just as in Massachusetts after 1811,[63] and this kind of divorce existed until 1883. Three new grounds for dissolving marriage were allowed in 1830. These were five years' wilful desertion, uniting with the society called Shakers, and sentence to state's prison—in each of the latter two cases the term being likewise five years.[64] To these were subsequently added fraudulent contract and three years' habitual drunkenness such as to incapacitate either spouse from taking care of the family.[65]

A radical change was made in 1847. All the foregoing causes were at once superseded by a sweeping provision which is without parallel in the previous history of New England. By an act of that year, amended in one particular in 1849, any justice of the supreme judicial court, at any term held in the county of the parties, may grant decrees of divorce from the bond of wedlock, when "in the exercise of a sound discretion" he may "deem the same reasonable and proper, conducive to domestic harmony, and consistent with the peace and morality of society."[66] Moreover, to understand the full import of this law we must take into account an enactment of 1850. In no case is the libellant then to be "restricted to the proof of causes happening within the state," or where either of the persons is "residing within the state," but he "may allege and prove any facts tending to show that the divorce would be" just according to the provision of the law in question.[67] The act of 1847 remained in force until 1883,[68] when a new statute appeared which completely transformed the divorce system of Maine. Seven causes of dissolution a vinculo are prescribed. These are (1) adultery; (2) impotence; (3) extreme cruelty; (4) utter desertion for three years; (5) gross and confirmed habits of intoxication; (6) cruel and abusive treatment; and (7) gross, cruel, and wanton neglect or refusal of the husband, being able, to provide for the wife.[69] At the same time the decree