Christians have always viewed marriage as a lifelong commitment and the law upheld this view up until the mid nineteenth century. There was something called a mensa et thoro, this was more like an official separation than a divorce however. It involved the couple living apart but they were not permitted to remarry.
Due to this, if a divorce was wanted; the couple would have to get something called a private act of parliament. This would cost a lot of money and take a substantial amount of time to go through. One would have to be rich to get this and the majority of people were not. Only 317 acts were passed in a total of 150 years, since the year 1700 onwards and was nearly always instigated by the man.
In the year 1857, the matrimonial causes act was put into place which allowed everybody to divorce. It no longer had to be granted by act of parliament and was open to both males and females. Before then it was only available to the rich because it was very expensive. Many years previously, Henry VIII had a divorce granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury so church courts then retained power to dissolve marriages.
This new law said that women had to have proof of adultery in order to divorce and had to have another reason on top including rape, ****** or cruelty.
In the year 1923, a private members bill was passed that make it easier for women to get a divorce on the grounds of adultery. By 1937 however, the law was changed again and women could get a divorce for other reasons including desertion, drunkenness and insanity.
A massive change in the law came in 1969 because the Divorce Reform Act was passed. This meant that couples could divorce after they had been separated for two years, this would be five years if only one of them wanted to divorce. This meant if a marriage had simply broken down through no fault of either party, they could be granted a divorce.
A special procedure was introduced between the years of 1973 and 1977, it allowed divorces that were undefended to be granted quickly and easily. This procedure meant that the court judge would examine the papers and affidavits. As long as there was no reason to believe that the marriage had not simply broken down, a divorce would be granted with minimum formality. This means that both parties need not attend court and the announcement of the decree is the only part that will be open. This has become very standard and divorces are rarely defended in court anymore because of it. There were just four counts of divorce that were granted in 1990 following a defended action, compared to 150,000 that were granted during the special procedure.
A breakthrough of sorts came in 1996 due to a famous case between Pamela White and Martin White who were applying for divorce. Pamela was awarded lb800,000, this was changed to lb1.5 million after two appeals. Since then it was decided that assets should be shared fairly between ex-spouses and hearings now recognise the contributions of a homemaker.
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A closer look at divorce through the years
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