[3] _Laws of the Commonwealth of Mass., 1780-1816_ (1807-16), I, 303. [4] Act of May 31, 1887: _Supp. to the Pub. Stat. of the Com. of Mass., 1882-88_ (1890), 584, 585. The statute of 1786 is reactionary with respect to the grounds of divorce. It is expressly declared that no divorce from the bond of matrimony, in the proper sense of the word, shall be allowed except for impotency or adultery in either of the parties. But in the outset it is necessary to be on one's guard against a confusion of terms caused by a retention of canonical usage. In this act, and for many years in the statutes of Massachusetts, as in those of some of the other states, the sentence of nullity of void or voidable wedlock, on the usual grounds of forbidden degrees, bigamy, or the like, is called "divorce."[5] For the first time in the revision of 1835 such unions, if solemnized within the state, are declared to be "absolutely void, without any decree of divorce, or other legal process;"[6] and this is typical of the tendency in other states[7] to adopt what is now the prevailing usage.[8] [5] The act provides "That divorces from the bond of matrimony shall be decreed, in case the parties are within the degrees aforesaid, or either of them had a former wife or husband, or for impotency or adultery in either of the parties."--_Laws of the Com. of Mass., 1780-1816_, I, 301. [6] "All marriages which are prohibited by law on account of consanguinity or affinity between the parties, or on account of either of them having a former wife or husband then living; all marriages, solemnized when either of the parties was insane or an idiot, and all marriages, between a white person and a negro, Indian or mulatto," shall, if solemnized within the state, be absolutely void, "without any decree of divorce, or other legal process."--_Rev. Stat. of the Com. of Mass._ (1836), 479. The same is true when either of the parties is under the age of consent, "if they shall separate during such nonage, and shall not cohabit together afterwards."--_Ibid._, 479. The clause forbidding marriages between a white person and a negro, Indian, or mulatto was repealed Feb. 25, 1843: _Supp. to Rev. Stat., 1836-53_ (1854), 248; _Acts and Resolves_ (1843), 4. [7] So in New Hampshire: compare the act of Feb. 17, 1791: _Laws of the State of N. H._ (1797), 295, with _Rev. Stat._ (1843), 293, when the modern usage was adopted. For Rhode Island see _Pub. Laws_ (1798), 497, and later revisions; for Maine compare _Laws_ (1821), I, 344, 345, with _Rev. Stat._ (1847), 364 (modern usage).