e Person Act
1861, or (2) convicted on indictment of an assault on her and sentenced
to pay a fine of more than L5 or to imprisonment for more than two
months, or (3) shall have deserted her, or (4) been guilty of persistent
cruelty to her or wilful neglect to maintain her or her infant children,
and by such cruelty or neglect shall have caused her to leave and live
apart from him, to apply to a court of summary jurisdiction and to
obtain an order containing all or any of the following provisions:--(1)
that the applicant be not forced to cohabit with her husband, (2) that
the applicant have the custody of any children under sixteen years of
age, (3) that the husband pay to her an allowance not exceeding L2 a
week. The act provides that no married woman guilty of adultery should
be granted relief, but with the very important proviso, altering as it
does the rule of the common law, that the husband has not conduced or
connived at, or by wilful neglect or misconduct conduced to, such
adultery. The provisions of this act[2] have been largely put in force,
and no doubt to the great advantage of the poorer classes of the
community. It will be observed that the act is unilateral, and affords
no relief to a husband against a wife; and the complaint is often heard
that no misconduct of the wife, except adultery, relieves the husband
from the necessity of maintaining her and allowing her to share his
home, unless he can obtain access to the high court.[3]

_Separation Deeds._--Although nothing in the development of the law of
divorce has tended to give to married persons the right absolutely to
dissolve their marriage by consent, and, on the contrary, any such
agreement would be held to be strong evidence of collusion, the view of
the Church expressed in the ecclesiastical law has been entirely
departed from as regards agreements for separation. Such agreements were
embodied in deeds, and usually contained mutual covenants not to sue in
the ecclesiastical courts for restitution of conjugal rights. The
ecclesiastical courts, however, wholly disregarded such agreements, and
considered them as affording no answer to a suit for restitution of
conjugal rights. For a considerable period the court of chancery refused
to enforce the covenant in such deeds by restraining the parties from
proceeding to the ecclesiastical courts. But at last a memorable
judgment of Lord Westbury (1861) asserted the right (_Hunt_ v. _Hunt_, 4
De G. F. & J. 2