cal incapacity of either spouse, the absence of
intercourse between the parties after a sufficient period of opportunity
being almost, if not quite, conclusive on this subject.

With regard to one cause of nullity the legislation interfered from
consideration, it is said, of a case of special hardship. Before the
Marriage Act of 1835 marriages within the prohibited degrees of
consanguinity and affinity were only voidable by a decree of the court,
and remained valid unless challenged during the lifetime of both the
parties. But this act, while providing that no previous marriage between
persons within the prohibited degrees should be annulled by a decree of
the ecclesiastical court pronounced in a suit depending at the time of
the passing of the act, went on to render all such marriages thereafter
contracted in England "absolutely null and void to all intents and
purposes whatever."

Another suit was allowed by the ecclesiastical courts which should be
mentioned, although its bearing on divorce is indirect. This was the
suit for _jactitation of marriage_, which in the case of any person
falsely asserting his or her marriage to another, allowed such person to
be put to perpetual silence by an order of the court. This suit, which
has been of rare occurrence (though there was an instance, _Thompson_ v.
_Rourke_, in 1892), does not appear to have been used for the purpose of
determining the validity of a marriage. The legislature, has, however,
in the Legitimacy Declaration Act of 1858, provided a ready means by
which the validity of marriages and the legitimacy of children can be
determined, and the procedure provided has repeatedly been utilised.

It should be added, as a matter closely akin to the proceedings in the
ecclesiastical courts, that the common law took cognizance of one phase
of matrimonial relations by allowing an action by the husband against a
paramour, known as an action for criminal conversation. In such an
action a husband could recover damages estimated according to the loss
he was supposed to have sustained by the seduction and loss of his wife,
the punishment of the seducer not being altogether excluded from
consideration. Although this action was not unfrequently (and indeed,
for the purposes of a divorce, necessarily) brought, it was one which
naturally was regarded with disfavour.

_Effect of the Reformation._--Great as was the indirect effect of the
Reformation upon the law of divorce in England