ceedings it was expressly enacted (sec. 22) that the court should act
on principles and rules as nearly as possible conformable to the
principles and rules of the ecclesiastical courts. Judicial separation
could be obtained by either husband or wife for adultery, or cruelty, or
desertion continued for two or more years.

2. There were also transferred to the court powers equivalent to those
exercised by the legislature in granting absolute divorce. The husband
could obtain a divorce for adultery, the wife could obtain a divorce for
adultery coupled with cruelty or desertion for two or more years, and
also for incestuous or bigamous adultery, or rape, or unnatural
offences. The same conditions as had been required by the legislature
were insisted on. A petition for dissolution (sec. 30) was to be
dismissed in case of connivance, condonation or collusion; and further,
the court had power, though it was not compelled, to dismiss such
petition if the petitioner had been guilty of adultery, or if there had
been unreasonable delay in presenting or prosecuting the petition, or if
the petitioner had been guilty of cruelty or desertion without
reasonable excuse, or of wilful neglect or misconduct conducing to the
adultery. The exercise of these discretionary powers of the court, just
and valuable as they undoubtedly are, has been attended with some
difficulty. But the view of the legislature has on the whole been
understood to be that the adultery of a petitioner should not constitute
a bar to his or her proceeding, if it has been caused by the misconduct
of the respondent, and that cruelty should not constitute such a bar
unless it has caused or contributed to the misconduct of the respondent.
But the court, while regarding its powers as those of a judicial and not
an arbitrary discretion, has declined to fetter itself by any fixed rule
of interpretation or practice.

It is to be observed that this act assigned a new force to desertion.
The ecclesiastical law regarded it only as suggestive of connivance or
culpable neglect. But the act of 1857 made it (1) a ground of judicial
separation if continued for two years, (2) a ground in part of
dissolution of marriage if continued for the same period, (3) a bar, in
the discretion of the court, to a petition for dissolution, though it
was not made in a similar way any bar to a suit for judicial separation.
It is also to be observed that the act was confined to causes of divorce
recogn