[479] _Stat. for the Ter. of Wash._ (1854), 405-7.
[480] Act of Jan. 23: _Acts_ (1860), 318-20.
[481] Act of Dec. 22, 1885: _Laws_ (1885-86), 120.
[482] Act of Feb. 24: _Laws_ (1891), 42; also in _Ann. Codes and Stat. of Wash._ (1897), II, 1595-1600.
[483] _Const. of 1889_, Art. IV, secs. 5, 6.
In 1851, at the second session of the state legislature, California granted the district courts "within their respective districts" jurisdiction in divorce questions. Nine causes of "divorces from bed and board, or from the bonds of matrimony," were then recognized. But in 1874 three of these--natural impotence, force or fraud, and the marriage of a female under the age of fourteen years without consent of parent or guardian or without ratification by her after reaching that age--were dropped, and thereafter they were rightly treated as grounds for annulment of voidable contracts. The remaining six causes were then re-enacted, with some changes in the prescribed conditions, but only as grounds of absolute divorce. The statute of 1874 is still in force, full dissolution of wedlock, but not separation from bed and board, being sanctioned for (1) adultery; (2) extreme cruelty; (3) wilful desertion; (4) wilful neglect; (5) habitual intemperance; (6) conviction of felony.
After this formal enumeration of the grounds of petition, the first code of California carefully defines the terms employed and prescribes the conditions under which the law shall take effect. Thus "wilful desertion, wilful neglect, or habitual intemperance must continue for one year before either is a ground for divorce." By the original act of 1851, it may be noted, a period of three years was prescribed for both wilful desertion and wilful neglect to provide. In 1853, however, the term of wilful desertion was reduced to two years; and the same time was fixed for wilful neglect in 1870. A period during which habitual intemperance must exist to constitute a cause of divorce was not mentioned until the statute of 1874, by which, in this case as well as in the two others above named, the one-year term was required. By the existing code extreme cruelty is defined as the "infliction of grievous bodily injury or grievous mental suffering."[484] "Wilful desertion is the voluntary separation of one of the married parties from the other with the intent to desert." But when one person is induced by the stratagem or fraud of the other "to leave the family dwelling-place, or to be absent, and during such absence the offending party departs with intent to desert the other, it is desertion by the party committing the stratagem or fraud, and not by the other." In like manner "departure or absence of one party from the dwelling-place, caused by cruelty or by threats of bodily harm from which danger would be reasonably apprehended from the other, is not desertion by the absent party but it is desertion by the other." Separation by consent, with or without the understanding that one of the married persons will apply for a divorce, is not desertion. Moreover, "absence or separation, proper in itself, becomes desertion whenever the intent to desert is fixed during such absence or separation."[485] Wilful neglect is defined as the neglect of the husband to provide for his wife the common necessaries of life, he having the ability to do so; or his failure to provide as the result of "idleness, profligacy, or dissipation."[486] Finally, habitual intemperance is described as "that degree of intemperance from the use of intoxicating drinks which disqualifies the person a great portion of the time from properly attending to business, or which would reasonably inflict a cause of great mental anguish" upon the innocent person.[487] In like spirit the reasons for denying a decree are minutely specified by the law. Original jurisdiction in all questions of divorce and annulment of marriage is now vested in the superior courts in their respective counties or other districts.[488]