Thus far we have dealt with doctrine and opinion as disclosed by the legal and theological writings of the century of Luther. The legislation of this period reveals a like difference of view regarding the grounds of divorce and the privilege of remarriage; although the majority of the church ordinances contained in the collection of Richter appear to follow the more rigid direction.[198] Usually the two general causes, adultery and desertion, are allowed; but in a few instances only the first-named ground is admitted.[199] On the other hand, as Goeschen has pointed out,[200] the number of causes is sometimes increased, either by adding new grounds,[201] by appeal to common imperial law,[202] or by leaving the decision to the judge's discretion.[203] Furthermore, during the seventeenth century, under influence of such writers as Bidembach and Mentzer,[204] divorce legislation follows the conservative lines laid down in the Würtemberg ordinances of 1534 and 1553.[205] The beginning of a new and more liberal treatment of the subject is first seen in the Würtemberg ordinance of 1687, which, besides adultery, desertion, and quasi-desertion, sanctions several other grounds of absolute divorce.[206] This change in the tone of the law-maker is mainly due to the rise of more generous doctrinal views, especially those of Hülsemann, who taught that marriage is dissolved by every offense which, like adultery and desertion, destroys the physical unity of the wedded pair or violates the conjugal troth constituting the safeguard of that unity.[207]
[Footnote 198: RICHTER, _Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts_.
In many Protestant lands these ecclesiastical statutes or provisions, with the sanction of the civil authority, took the place of the old canon law. For a discussion of their contents see especially the monographs of GOESCHEN, _Doctrina de mat._, 59 ff.; _idem_, in HERZOG'S _Encyclopädie_, III, 702 ff.; DIETRICH, _Evang. Ehescheidungsrecht_; and compare HAUBER, _Ehescheid. im Reformat._, II, 219 ff.; RICHTER, _Beiträge_, 51 ff.; _idem_, _Kirchenrecht_, 1177, 1178; STRIPPELMANN, _Das Ehescheidungsrecht_, 78 ff.; GREVE, _Ehescheidung_, 298 ff.; THWING, _The Family_, 84, 85; WOOLSEY, _Divorce_, 136-38.]