[493] Act of Jan. 16, 1864: in _Laws of the Ter. of Idaho_ (1863-64), 615-18.
[494] Act of Jan. 9: _Laws_ (1867), 69-71.
[495] Act of Jan. 13, 1875: _Comp. and Rev. Laws of Idaho_ (1875), 639-41.
The experience of the Dakotas has been very similar to that of Idaho and Montana, so far as the final results are concerned; but the early territorial legislation was often clumsy in form, vicious in character, and subject to frequent and violent changes. The original act of 1864 grants the several district courts jurisdiction in petitions for absolute dissolution of marriage on suit brought in the county where the persons or one of them resides, for (1) adultery; (2) impotence; (3) imprisonment in a penitentiary subsequently to the marriage, no pardon effecting a restoration of conjugal rights; (4) cruel and inhuman treatment, "whether practised by using personal violence, or by any other means"; (5) habitual drunkenness for one year next before filing the complaint; (6) "when it shall be made fully to appear that from any other reason or cause existing, the parties cannot live in peace and happiness together, and that their welfare requires a separation."[496] Separation from bed and board is not contemplated by the law of 1864; but in 1866 a new statute appears by which both kinds of divorce are provided for. A full divorce is permitted only on the scriptural ground; but a partial divorce "for life or for a limited time" may be decreed in favor of the aggrieved for (1) cruel treatment; (2) conduct rendering cohabitation unsafe or improper; (3) abandonment, accompanied by refusal to fulfil the matrimonial obligations sanctioned by the statute. If in any case a decree of separation be denied, the court may provide for the separate maintenance of the wife and children by the husband or out of his property.[497] The very next year this act was replaced by another which allows the aggrieved spouse absolute divorce for (1) bigamous contract; (2) wilful absence for five years; (3) adultery; (4) impotency; (5) pregnancy of the wife at the time of the marriage by a man other than the husband without the latter's knowledge; (6) extreme cruelty; (7) habitual drunkenness; (8) imprisonment in a penitentiary anywhere in the United States for violation of the criminal laws;[498] (9) whenever it shall be made to appear that the husband or wife of the applicant "has obtained a decree of divorce in any of the courts of any other territory or state, by virtue of which the party who shall have obtained such decree shall have been released from the obligation of the marriage contract, while the same remains binding upon the other party." Limited divorce is not mentioned by this statute; but, in place of it, a wife may obtain separate alimony for (1) the husband's adultery; (2) his gross neglect of duty; (3) abandonment by him without good cause; (4) where there is a separation in consequence of his ill-treatment; (5) his habitual drunkenness; or (6) his confinement in any prison in the country, or for any crime warranting such punishment in the territory.[499]