[182] Act of March 17, 1841: _Acts of the Assembly_ (1840-41), 78, 79. The court may declare contracts void on the grounds named in 1827, "or for any other cause for which marriage is annulled by the ecclesiastical law" (78).
[183] Act of March 18, 1848: _Acts of Assembly_ (1847-48), 165-67.
[184] _Va. Code_ (1849), 561. Probably the abandonment or desertion is for a time less than five years, as the latter period is sufficient for a divorce _a vinculo_: _Code_ (1860), 530, and note. On joint application of the parties and due evidence of reconciliation, a decree of separation may be revoked by the same court granting it; and when three years have elapsed without reconciliation after such a decree, the court may grant a full divorce: _Acts_ (1895-96), 103; modified by _ibid._ (1902-3), 87, 98.
By the present law, which, with a slight modification in 1872 and another in 1894, has remained unaltered since the act of 1853, eight causes for complete dissolution of wedlock are recognized; and jurisdiction in all suits for divorce, annulment, or separation is vested in the "circuit and corporation courts on their chancery side." An absolute decree may be obtained (1) for adultery; (2) natural or incurable impotency of body existing at the time of entering into the marriage contract; (3) where either party is sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary; (4) where prior to the marriage either party, without the knowledge of the other, has been convicted of an infamous offense; (5) "where either party charged with an offence punishable by death or confinement in the penitentiary has been indicted, is a fugitive from justice, and has been absent for two years;"[185] (6) where either party wilfully deserts or abandons the other for three years; (7) "where at the time of the marriage, the wife, without the knowledge of the husband, was _enceinte_ by some person other than the husband;" (8) or where prior to the marriage she had been, without the husband's knowledge, notoriously a prostitute. But it is especially provided that for the last two causes no divorce shall be decreed if it appears that the person applying has cohabited with the other after gaining knowledge of the facts. The same is true of "conviction of an infamous offence;" and under the third cause, that of sentence to the penitentiary, a pardon shall not restore the offender to conjugal rights.[186]