A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 3 of 3Howard, George Elliott
History
A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 3 of 3
Howard, George Elliott
Families; Marriage -- History
[148] _Laws_ (1833), 235 ff.; Const. of 1832, Art. VII, sec.
15: POORE, _Charters_, II, 1077. The omission of the clause
expressly requiring legislative sanction in the constitution of
1832 seems clearly to be intended to abolish legislative divorce.
Yet the act of 1840 makes the decrees of the courts "final and
conclusive, as fully as though the same had been confirmed by
the legislature;" from which language one would naturally infer
that the legislature had continued to ratify divorces after the
constitution went into effect: _Laws_ (1840), 51.
Legislative divorce is prohibited by the constitution of 1868,
Art. IV, sec. 22: POORE, _Charters_, II, 1084; and by Art. IV,
secs. 87 and 90 of the constitution of 1890: _New York Convention
Manual_, Part II, Vol. I, 1067 (1894).
Alabama, as a part of the Mississippi Territory, was, of course,
affected by the act of 1803 above cited.[149] Resort to the
legislature may have been practiced from the beginning. At any
rate, during the existence of the Alabama Territory--from 1817 to
1819--ten divorces were thus obtained.[150] The people seem to have
been so much in love with the custom that it is sanctioned, on the
usual co-operative plan, by the constitution of 1819. The sixth
article of that instrument requires that all decrees of the courts
granting absolute dissolution of wedlock shall be confirmed by
two-thirds of each house of the assembly, precisely in the same form
as by the constitution of Mississippi two years earlier.[151] The
act of the next year, conferring jurisdiction in such cases on the
circuit courts and defining the causes of divorce, directs that the
record of evidence made by the court in each suit shall be sent to
the speaker of the house of representatives, who is to open and have
it read before the members.[152]
[149] The act also appears in _Digest of Laws of Ala._ (1823),
252.
[150] _Digest_ (1823), 254.
[151] Art. VI, sec. 3, Const. of 1819: _Digest_ (1823), 255:
POORE, _Charters_, I, 42.
[152] Act. of Dec. 21, 1820: _Digest_ (1823), 256.
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