[19] So by an act of 1870 the decree _nisi_ _may_ in three years and _shall_ in five years be made absolute, upon proof of the parties living separate during the period; if they live together, the decree _nisi_ becomes void: _Supp. to Gen. Stat., 1860-72_, I, 871. This act was repealed in 1873: _Supp. to Gen. Stat., 1873-77_, II, 104; but the interval in case of a decree for desertion was then fixed at three years: _ibid._, 104. In the next year the act of 1867 was amended by adding, "but a decree of divorce when personal service is made on the libellee, or when the libel for divorce shall have been entered at a term prior to the term granting a decree of divorce, shall be a decree absolute, and not _nisi_": _ibid._, II, 306 (June 30, 1874). On May 19, 1875, the interval fixed by the law of 1870 was restored: three years on petition of the libellant; five years on petition of either party: _ibid._, II, 364. But in 1881 it was again made six months on the petition of either party: _Acts and Resolves_ (1881), 563. The next year the law was slightly modified in the details of procedure, the six months' interval being retained: _ibid._ (1882), 178, 179; amending chap. 146, _Pub. Stat. of the Com. of Mass._ (1882), 813, 815. [20] Act of May 2, 1893: _Acts and Resolves_ (1893), 916, amending slightly another act of the same year: _ibid._, 829, 830. _Cf._ _Rev. Laws_ (1902), II, 1355. The introduction of the decree _nisi_ in 1867, and the abrogation of the decree from bed and board in 1870, led at once to an extension of the causes of divorce from the bond of marriage. In addition to the five grounds already existing, a statute of the last-named year authorizes a full divorce for "extreme cruelty," "gross and confirmed habits of intoxication contracted after marriage," or "cruel or abusive treatment by either of the parties," and "on the libel of the wife, when the husband, being of sufficient ability, grossly or wantonly and cruelly refuses or neglects to provide suitable maintenance for her." Several of these causes, it will be noticed, had already existed as grounds for separation from bed and board, and were now merely transferred to full divorce. "Utter desertion," first allowed in 1838, likewise appears in this act as a new cause; but it is so only for the reason that all limitation as to the term of desertion is now omitted.[21] But in 1873 the period was fixed at three years,[22] and this term is retained in the present law.[23] Finally in 1889 dissolution of wedlock is granted for "gross and confirmed drunkenness" caused "by the voluntary and excessive use of opium or other drugs."[24] By the omission of one, the modification and combination of others, these ten causes have now been reduced to seven. By the present law a full divorce, to be a decree _nisi_ in the first instance, may be granted for (1) adultery; (2) impotency; (3) utter desertion for three years; (4)