ABSTRACT
English divorce law has always insisted a certified cause be shown to dissolve the marriage partnership; a mutual agreement to divorce is not accepted as sufficient reason for immediate termination. When the last Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce began in 1951 to inquire into the law affecting marriage breakdown, it was examining a legal process designed to ensure an adversarial contest between the petitioner and the respondent. The rules of engagement required the wronged spouse to come to court with ‘clean hands’ and prove the respondent’s voluntary committal of a matrimonial offence judged so heinous as to cut at the heart of marriage. In practice the vast majority of respondents offered little resistance at the court confrontation: the licence to marry again was a prize bestowed on both parties.
THE GROUNDS AND FACTS OF DIVORCE
