What is known as the “restitution of conjugal rights” might as a phase of matrimonial law be consigned to the scrap-heap.[4] A certain petition of this class attracted some interest three or four years ago, when a married woman, judicially separated, brought her husband into court as a respondent. Though this story has no legal point, it may perhaps be given here. In a few words, the petitioner, who, it was alleged, was addicted to drink, had gone to Switzerland. She was, as already stated, judicially separated from her husband, and, in consequence, a petition for the restitution of conjugal rights would have been entirely out of the question, unless, of course, the husband had committed some act to render the force of the separation void. The petitioner’s case was that her husband had followed her to Switzerland, and had there had intercourse with her. His story, on the other hand, was that he had gone to Switzerland to obtain the custody of a certain child of the marriage, owing to the mother’s inability to take proper care of it. He denied that intercourse had occurred between himself and his wife. The case was a difficult one to decide, for there appeared to be some foundation for the allegation concerning the wife’s habits. The judge, however, believed this lady’s version and made an order against the husband for the restitution of conjugal rights. The whole case centred round the one point. Did the husband have sexual intercourse with his wife on a certain date at a certain place in Switzerland? The issue was clear enough, but the facts leading up to it were complex in the extreme. The weaker vessel gained the benefit of the doubt. All such cases are more or less unsatisfactory. If there had been a clear divorce, instead of a separation, where these unfortunate people were concerned, the Swiss episode would have been unimportant. Several days of the court’s time would have been saved in arriving at a decision, which, after all, was of small value to either party. “Among the Romans, divorce did not require the sentence of a judge, and no judicial proceedings were necessary. It was considered a private act, though some distinct notice or declaration of intention was usual. At one period it was the practice for one of the spouses to intimate the divorce to the other in an epistolary form, by means of a freedman, in presence of seven witnesses, all Roman citizens above the age of puberty; and this was no doubt intended to preserve clear evidence of a transaction which was attended with such important effects on the civil rights of the parties concerned.”[5]