Matrimonial Causes Act 1857

Before the act, divorce was governed by the ecclesiastical Court of Arches and the canon law of the Church of England. As such, it was not administered by the barristers who practised in the common law courts but by the "advocates" and "proctors" who practised civil law from Doctors' Commons, adding to the obscurity of the proceedings. Divorce allowing remarriage was de facto restricted to the very wealthy, as it demanded either a complex annulment process or a private bill, either at great cost. The latter entailed sometimes lengthy debates about a couple's intimate marital relationship in public in the House of Commons. A bill to create a civil court to regulate divorce and to allow it to proceed by ordinary civil litigation had been proposed by Lord Aberdeen's coalition but had made no progress. The procedure had largely been designed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Campbell. When Lord Palmerston came to power in 1855, the bill was relaunched. The bill was introduced in the House of Lords and supported by Archbishop of Canterbury John Bird Sumner and the usually conservative Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter. The bill proved controversial, raising particular opposition from future Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, who saw it as an usurpation of the authority of the church, and from Bishop of Oxford Samuel Wilberforce. Palmerston eventually steered the bill through Parliament, despite Gladstone's attempted filibuster. ==The act==

The act abolished ecclesiastical jurisdiction regarding matrimonial matters, and for the first time made secular divorces possible (by court order). The act created a new Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes and gave it jurisdiction to hear and decide civil actions for divorce. However, were the petitioner an accessory to or condoned the adultery, a divorce could not be obtained. Section 57 of the act also enabled the parties to remarry after divorce as though the marriage had been dissolved by the death of one of the spouses. The act did not treat women's and men's grounds for divorce equally (largely on the grounds that women's adultery was more serious because it introduced doubt as to the paternity of possible heirs). Thus a husband could petition for divorce on the sole grounds that his wife had committed adultery, whereas a wife could only hope for a divorce based on adultery combined with other offences such as incest, cruelty, bigamy, desertion, etc. The act also required that a suit by a husband for adultery name the adulterer as a co-respondent, whereas this was not required in a suit by a wife. The Matrimonial Causes Act 1937 broadened the grounds for divorce, adding additional reasons for which a divorce could be granted. ==Implementation and impact==

The act came into force on 1 January 1858. Ireland Ireland was excluded from the operation of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and retained the more onerous parliamentary process. Divorce remained restricted to the socially and economically select, with an inherent gender bias. The Louisa Westropp's divorce of 1886 established a legal precedent, initially in relation to marital cruelty, “whereby any ground for divorce accepted by court could be applied in parliament." Northern Ireland retained parliamentary divorce up to 1939 when judicial divorce was introduced. The process was removed in the Irish Free State in 1925 and a ban on divorce was introduced in the Constitution adopted in 1937. Overseas impact Other areas of the Empire were encouraged to follow the reform offered by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and therefore it had an impact in some of Britain's overseas possessions. In a series of decisions, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council held that the act was part of the local law of the four western provinces of Canada, having been received by those provinces under the doctrine of the reception of English statute law. In 1930, the Parliament of Canada extended its application to the province of Ontario. The act formed the basis for divorce law in those provinces until the Parliament passed a uniform Divorce Act in 1968 which applied nationwide. == Subsequent developments ==

The whole act was repealed by section 34(1) of, and schedule 2 to, the Administration of Justice Act 1965. The Administration of Justice Act 1965 (Commencement No. 1) Order 1965 (SI 1965/706) provided that this repeal would take effect on 27 April 1965. ==See also==