[188] As early as 1800 separate maintenance is secured to the wife in certain cases. It is enacted "that any court of quarter sessions or district court, shall be vested with jurisdiction to hear and determine applications from wives against their husbands for alimony, in cases where the husband has, or may hereafter desert or abandon his wife for the space of one year successively, or where he lives in open avowed adultery with another woman for the space of six months, and in cases of cruel, inhuman, and barbarous treatment."--_Digest of the Stat. Laws of Ky._ (1834), I, 121. Such cruel treatment warrants alimony even when life is not endangered: 2 J. J. MARSHALL, 324; but not divorce: _ibid._, 322. "Before the passage of the above act, the chancellor had power to grant alimony, and since the statute it may be decreed in cases not embraced by it."--_Digest_ (1834), I, 121, note. "After a decree for alimony, the power of the husband over the wife shall cease;" and she may use such alimony, and acquire and dispose of any property, "without being subject to the control, molestation, or hindrance" of the husband, as if she were a _feme sole_: _ibid._, I, 122. The two kinds of common-law divorce, in canonical sense, were originally recognized in Kentucky: HUMPHREY, _Compendium of the Common Law in Force in Ky._ (1822), 135. [189] LITTELL, _Statute Law of Kentucky_ (1814), IV, 19, 20. [190] Act of Feb. 8, 1812: LITTELL, _loc. cit._, 407 ff. In case of divorce, the wife may not marry again within one year (409).