PRÁVNĚHISTORICKÉ STUDIE
PRÁVNĚHISTORICKÉ STUDIE

Právněhistorické studie / Legal History Studies (Charles University journal; below referred to as PHS or Journal) is a scientific journal listed in the international prestigious database SCOPUS. The journal is published by Charles University in Prague under the guarantee of the Department of Legal History of the Faculty of Law of Charles University. It is published by the Karolinum Press. The journal focuses on the field of legal history and related topics.

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PRÁVNĚHISTORICKÉ STUDIE, Vol 52 No 2 (2022), 81–93

Women and Parliamentary Divorce in England. From Wife-Sale to the Divorce Act of 1857

Dolores Freda

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/2464689X.2022.20
published online: 15. 09. 2022

abstract

The essay is a study of divorce in England in the Modern Period, with particular reference to parliamentary divorce, established since the end of the 17th century. If husbands could get rid of undesired wives through wife-selling, private separation deeds, or separation a mensa et thoro awarded by the ecclesiastical courts, they were not permitted to remarry unless they got a private bill from Parliament. Parliament acted as a real court of justice and, being the procedure extremely long and expensive, parliamentary divorce was in fact a privilege reserved to members of the aristocracy in search of a heir. Only in 1857 the Divorce Act legalized divorce in the country through the establishment of the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes.

keywords: divorce; marriage; parliament; England

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