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Reports of Cases in the High Court of Chancery of Maryland 1846-1854
Volume 200, Volume 2, Page 319   View pdf image (33K)
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BROWN VS. BROWN. 319
ssmbly of December session, 1841, ch., 262, since which time,
two supplements have been passed; the first in 18A3, ch. 287,
the last in 1844, ch. 306.
By the second section of the original act, the causes for which
divorces a vinculo matrimonii, may be granted, are stated.
These are five i& number, and the fourth, which is supposed to
embrace this case, authorises the court to decree a divorce of
this absolute character "when the party complained against
has abandoned the party complaining, and has remained absent
from the state for five years." By the third section of the same
act, a divorce a mensa et thoro may be granted for abandon-
ment and desertion, without regard to its duration, or the ab-
sence of the party from the state.
The act of 1844, ch. 306, repeals those portions' of the second
section of the original act, which requires absence from the state
for five years, on the part of the party complained against, as a
cause of divorce a vinculo matrimonii, with a proviso that no
such decree shall be passed on account of abandonment, unless
the court shall be satisfied, by competent proof, that such aban-
donment has- continued uninterruptedly for at least three years,
and is deliberate and final, and the separation of the parties
beyond any reasonable expectation of reconciliation.
This latter law, it is supposed by the complainant's solicitor,
not only changes so much of the act of 1841, ch. 262, as makes
it necessary that the party complained agitiusit, should have re-
mained absent from the state for five years, but renders absence
from the state, for a period, unnecessary. It is not clear, how-
ever, that this is the true construction of the act of 1844. Its
language is, "that all such parts of the second section of the
act to which it is a supplement, as requires absence from the
state for five years, &c. be and the same are hereby repealed."
It does not say that absence from the state for any period, shall
not be necessary to entitle a party to an absolute divorce, but
that absence for five years, shall not berequired. If the legis-
lature had designed to dispense with the absence from, the state
altogether, as oae of the ingredients constituting the ground for
an absolute divorce, it is presumed they would have expressed

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Reports of Cases in the High Court of Chancery of Maryland 1846-1854
Volume 200, Volume 2, Page 319   View pdf image (33K)
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