Frequency of divorces—The new Civil Code on marriage and divorce—Conditions of a valid marriage—Invalid marriages—Cohabitation—The wife’s legal position—Her separate property—The rights of the head of the family—Care of the wife’s property—Forms of divorce—Grounds for divorce—Custody of children—No damages against the co-respondent—Breaches of promise of marriage—Few mercenary marriages—Widow-hunting also rare. In the old days divorces took place on the slightest pretext. Among the higher classes, it is true, the family connections which a marriage brought into existence could not be dissolved without more or less serious consequences, and the parties were, as in other countries, expected to sacrifice their personal happiness to family considerations; but among the other classes which were not influenced, as a rule, by such worldly motives in their marriages, divorces were of pretty frequent occurrence. And moreover, as they often took place from no fault of the persons divorced, they came to lose to some extent the stigma which usually attaches to them. Still, those women who had been brought up with a strict, old-world sense of honour, looked upon divorce as a stain upon their reputation; for if it did not necessarily imply misconduct, it was attributable to want of tact on the part of the _divorcée_, and although it arose not unfrequently from the husband’s caprice, she was not, until that could be proved, held altogether free from blame. As she was from the first supposed to be prepared for a wilful, cross-tempered mother-in-law, it signified a certain defect in her character that she should have failed to get into her good graces; and the girl, therefore, ashamed to be exposed to the ignominy of divorce, did her best to please her husband’s family and would put up with almost anything rather than be sent away. But the family relations sometimes became so strained that she ran away or was packed home. Divorce was, moreover, easy to effect; it needed nothing more than the re-transfer of the divorced wife’s domicile from her husband’s home to her father’s. There was no official inquiry, and a remarriage could take place at any time. This unsatisfactory state of affairs was to a certain extent remedied by the new Civil Code which came into operation in 1898, though it is too early yet to say what permanent reform it has brought about in our system of marriage and divorce; and it may be well, before entering into the grounds on which a divorce may be sought under the new law, to consider the conditions requisite for a valid marriage as they will give some idea of the position taken by the legislature in regard to matrimonial relations and so help us to understand its attitude towards divorce.