_a_) _Opinions of Luther and the continental reformers._--With the rejection of the sacramental theory of marriage at the Reformation it was inevitable that more liberal ideas respecting divorce should arise. The mother-church was accused of fostering vice by professing a doctrine too severe;[171] while at the same time she was bitterly reproached with a scandalous abuse of her own jurisdiction through which in effect the forbidden degrees had become an open door to divorce for the use of the rich and powerful. Accordingly, the leaders of Protestantism took intermediate ground. On the one hand, while Luther and some other reformers sanctioned temporary separations[172] of husband and wife, there was a strong tendency to reject entirely perpetual divorce _a mensa et thoro_ as being a "relatively modern invention" unknown to the ancient church; and a condition of life incompatible with the true ideal of wedlock.[173] On the other hand, they generally favored complete divorce _a vinculo_, admitting two or more grounds according as they interpreted strictly or more liberally the scriptural texts. For they still appealed to authority rather than to reason and experience in their attempts to solve a great social problem. They were thus often sorely embarrassed. Their writings, indeed, reveal not a little of the casuistry and self-deception which so often vitiate the reasoning of the canonists and their predecessors.[174] [Footnote 171: The writings of Luther, Milton, and other Reformation and Puritan writers abound in examples of such charges. "For no cause, honest or necessary," says MARTIN BUCER, "will they permit a final divorce: in the meanwhile, whoredoms and adulteries, and worse things than these, not only tolerating in themselves and others, but cherishing and throwing men headlong into these evils. For although they also disjoin married persons from board and bed, that is, from all conjugal society and communion, and this not only for adultery, but for ill usage, and matrimonial duties denied; yet they forbid those thus parted to join in wedlock with others: but, as I said before, any dishonest associating they permit."--"The Judgment of Martin Bucer," in MILTON'S _Prose Works_, III, 292.] [Footnote 172: GOESCHEN, _Doctrina de mat._, 60; also MEJER, "Zur Geschichte des ält. prot. Eherechts," in _ZKR._, XVI, 47; HUBRICH, _Das Recht der Ehescheidung_, 139 ff.] [Footnote 173: _Cf._ ESMEIN, _Le mariage en droit canonique_, II, 308, 309. Throughout his _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, as elsewhere in his writings, MILTON insists that a real marriage implies a full spiritual as well as conjugal companionship, with which the theory of separation without dissolution is inconsistent; and this is the common Puritan view.]