[467] _Compiled Stat._ (1901), 577. The law regarding jurisdiction is the same as in 1856.
Separation from bed and board has at no time been authorized by the laws of Colorado. The district courts have jurisdiction. Full divorce may now be granted in favor of the aggrieved on eight grounds; and in this regard there have been few changes since the first statute of 1861. The present causes are (1) impotence continuing from the time of the marriage or originating thereafter in consequence of immoral or criminal conduct; (2) bigamous contract; (3) adultery; (4) one years' wilful desertion and absence without reasonable cause (5) extreme or repeated acts of cruelty, consisting as well in the infliction of mental suffering as of bodily violence; (6) failure on the part of the husband, being in good bodily health, to make reasonable provision for his family for the space of one year; (7) habitual drunkenness of either spouse for the same period; (8) conviction of felony.[468]
[468] Act of April 3, 1893: _Laws of Col._, 236, 237; also in MILLS, _Ann. Stat._ (1897), III, 434. The sixth cause was added in 1881. At the same time the term of habitual drunkenness was reduced to one year, instead of two years, as by the law of 1861; while desertion and departure from the territory "without intention of returning," until then a ground for divorce when committed by the husband, was made a ground when committed by either party: _Laws of Col._ (1881), 112; also in _Gen. Stat._ (1883), 397 ff. The first cause, in its present form, arose in _Laws of Col._ (1885), 189, and it differs somewhat from the original provision in _ibid._ (1861-62), 360.
Since the original statute of 1870, in Wyoming, a bigamous contract or a marriage where the persons are related within the forbidden degrees, or where either is insane or an idiot, is void without judicial decree.[469] In that state separation from bed and board has never been sanctioned. Under the existing law, as it has stood since 1882, absolute divorce is allowed either person when aggrieved for (1) adultery; (2) physical incompetence continuing from the time of the marriage; (3) conviction of a felony and imprisonment therefor in any prison, no subsequent pardon effecting a restitution of conjugal rights; (4) wilful desertion for one year; (5) when either husband or wife has become a habitual drunkard; (6) extreme cruelty; (7) neglect of the husband for the period of one year to provide the common necessaries of life, unless such neglect is the result of poverty which he could not have avoided by ordinary industry; (8) indignities rendering the condition of either spouse intolerable; (9) conduct on the part of the husband constituting him a vagrant within the meaning of the law; (10) when before the marriage or its solemnization either person shall have been convicted of a felony or infamous crime in any state, territory, or count[r]y without knowledge of the fact by the other at the time of the marriage; (11) when the intended wife at the time of contracting the marriage or its solemnization is pregnant by any man other than her intended husband, and without the latter's knowledge at the time of the solemnization.
