[390] Act of Sept. 19, 1785: _Laws of the Com. of Pa._ (1803), III, 102-6. Repealed March 13, 1815: _Laws of Gen. Assem._ (1822), VI, 286; PURDON, _Digest_ (1818), 130.
By the first statute of the period, it thus appears, a liberal divorce policy was adopted by Pennsylvania, and besides, it should be remembered, the courts were not the only source of relief. For many years, as already seen, the assembly exercised jurisdiction in divorce matters. After 1785 the first step in the practical relaxation of the law was taken in 1804, when jurisdiction, hitherto vested exclusively in the supreme court, was extended to the county courts of common pleas, where it still remains.[391] Since that date the progress of legislation has been rapid enough. Under the existing law, as the result of a century's growth, not less than eleven grounds of complete divorce are recognized. By the statute of 1815, repealing the law of 1785, the four causes sanctioned by the latter are re-enacted, the term of "malicious desertion and absence from the habitation of the other"--as the clause is now phrased--being reduced to two years; and it is further provided that full dissolution of marriage may be decreed (5) when any husband, by cruel and barbarous treatment, shall have endangered the life of his wife; or (6) offered such indignities to her person as to render her condition intolerable and life burdensome, thereby forcing her to withdraw from his house and family.[392] Marriage within the forbidden degrees of affinity or consanguinity (7) was made a ground in the same year;[393] lunacy of the wife (8) came next in 1843;[394] and in 1854 divorce was sanctioned (9) when the alleged marriage was procured by fraud, force, or coercion, and has not been later confirmed by the acts of the person injured; (10) when the wife, by cruel and barbarous treatment, has rendered the condition of her husband intolerable or life burdensome; or (11) when either spouse has been convicted for felony with imprisonment for more than two years.[395] These eleven causes are still in force, although in 1903 a new law regarding the crimes of either spouse to constitute a cause was adopted.[396]
[392] Act of March 13, 1815: in _Laws of Com._ (1822), VI, 286; and PEPPER AND LEWIS, _Digest_ (1896), I, 1633.