Maryland Divorce ~ Understanding The History Of Maryland Divorce
During the colonial period there were no divorces in Maryland, but there were instances where a wife was deserted or mistreated so that she had no choice but to leave home. She then applied to the Chancery Court for assistance. Alimony was sometimes granted as long as the wife and husband live separately. In a 1706 case a man was charged with bigamy when he married and his former wife "'was then alive in the Colony of Virginia and had not been beyond the seas seven years nor absent from him seven years together". In that case a seven year separation dissolved the marriage.
After the Revolutionary War there was still the need to help intolerable marriages, but the power to grant relief was not conferred upon any of the courts justice. The General Assembly stepped in and assumed the role but there was not constitutional basis for legislative divorces. There were a few failed petitions for relief. The Maryland legislature passed a special act in 1790 granting divorce to a Talbot County man whose wife had been convicted of adultery which led to the birth of a mulatto child. There were no criteria for grounds for divorce, but the legislature acted with speed and continued to grant divorces until prohibition by the Maryland Constitution of 1851.
During these times there were two types of divorce. Divorce a mensa et thoro, a divorce from bed and board which provided a separation but did not affect the marriage itself. Divorce a vinculo matrimonli , was a divorce from the bonds of marriage which released all ties so that both parties were free to remarry and at death neither party was entitled to any part of the other's estate.
On March 1, 1842, an act to give the Chancellor and the County courts of Equity jurisdiction in cases of divorce was finally passed ( Acts of 1841, Ch. 262). This act was created to support the two types of above mentioned divorce.
Grounds for divorce a mensa et thoro were :
1. cruel treatment
2. excessively vicious conduct
3. abandonment and desertion
Grounds for divorce a vinculo matrimonli were :
1. impotence of either party at the time of marriage
2. any cause by the laws of Maryland rendering a marriage null and void ab initio
3. adultery
4. abandonment and absence from the State for five years
* "Void ab initio" means "void at its inception" , a marriage at gunpoint or cases of bigamy, as an example.
The time of abandonment was reduced to three years and the requirement for leaving the state was no longer a law in 1845. Proof of absence and irreconcilability was required. A fifth ground for divorce a viniculo matrimonli was added "when the woman before marriage had been guilty of illicit carnal intercourse with another man, the same being unknown to the husband at the time of marriage in 1847.
Source : www.msa.md.gov