The act under discussion was conservative in another important respect. Divorce from bed and board, which had crept into the judicial practice toward the close of the provincial era, was now allowed either partner by statute on the one ground of "extreme cruelty." Two new causes were added twenty-five years later. By the act of 1786, it will be observed, desertion and long absence, admitted during the earlier period as sufficient causes for dissolving the marriage bond, are not mentioned for either kind of divorce.[9] But in 1811 it was enacted that the wife may be divorced _a mensa et thoro_, whenever the husband "shall utterly desert" her, or whenever, "being of sufficient ability thereto," he shall "wantonly and cruelly neglect or refuse to provide suitable maintenance for her."[10] In all cases of separation from bed and board, as provided in 1829, the court may assign the wife all the personal estate which the husband received through the marriage, or such part of it as may seem just under the circumstances; while "all promissory notes and other choses in action" belonging to her before the marriage, or made payable during the coverture to her alone, or jointly with the husband on account of property belonging to her or debts due to her before the marriage, and all legacies to her, and personal property, which may have descended to her, as heir, or be held for her in trust, or in any other way appertaining to her in her own right, none of which things enumerated have been reduced to possession by the husband before the libel was filed, shall be and remain her separate property; and she is empowered to bring suit to recover it "in the same manner as if she were a _feme sole_."[11] No further important change[12] in the law appears to have been made before 1870, when divorce from bed and board was abolished.[13]
[9] But an act of the preceding year "against adultery, polygamy, and lewdness" exempts from its penalties a person whose husband or wife has been absent seven years unheard of: Act of Feb. 17, 1785, _Laws of the Com. of Mass., 1780-1816_, I, 217, 218.
[10] Act of Feb. 28, 1811: _ibid._, IV, 223.
[11] Act of Feb. 18, 1829: _Laws of the Com. of Mass., 1828-31_ (1831), 83, 84.