perspective by a judicious selection and grouping of the materials. _a_) _Jurisdiction; causes and kinds of divorce._--Through their silence on the subject nearly all of the first state constitutions left the power of granting divorces in the hands of the legislative bodies. In Massachusetts, however, the practice of the provincial period was temporarily continued. "All causes of marriage, divorce, and alimony," declares the constitution of 1780, "shall be heard by the Governor and Council, until the Legislature shall by law make other provision."[1] Such provision was made in 1786. Yet six years thereafter Governor Hancock is obliged to return to the senate unsigned a bill "for dissolving the bond of matrimony between Daniel Chickering and Abigail his wife," remarking that it is unconstitutional and the proposed divorce is for a cause for which by law only a separation _a mensa et thoro_ may be granted.[2] By the act of 1786 all questions of divorce and alimony are referred to the "Supreme Judicial Court holden for the County where the parties live," and its decrees are final.[3] Here the jurisdiction remained until 1887, when it was vested in the superior court with appeal to the first-named tribunal; and the power to hear petitions for separate maintenance and for the care, custody, education, and support of minor children was given to the courts of probate in the several counties.[4] [1] _Const. of Mass._ (1780), chap. 3. [2] For the document containing this veto see _Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Mass._ (1790-91: reprinted by the secretary of state, Boston, 1895), 575, 576. [3] _Laws of the Commonwealth of Mass., 1780-1816_ (1807-16), I, 303. [4] Act of May 31, 1887: _Supp. to the Pub. Stat. of the Com. of Mass., 1882-88_ (1890), 584, 585. The statute of 1786 is reactionary with respect to the grounds of divorce. It is expressly declared that no divorce from the bond of matrimony, in the proper sense of the word, shall be allowed except for impotency or adultery in either of the parties. But in the outset it is necessary to be on one's guard against a confusion of terms caused by a retention of canonical usage. In this act, and for many years in the statutes of Massachusetts, as in those of some of the other states, the sentence of nullity of void or voidable wedlock, on the usual grounds of forbidden degrees, bigamy, or the like, is called "divorce."[5] For the first time in the revision of 1835 such unions, if solemnized within the state, are declared to be "absolutely void, without any decree of divorce, or other legal process;"[6] and this is typical of the tendency in other states[7] to adopt what is now the prevailing usage.[8] [5] The act provides "That divorces from the bond of matrimony shall be decreed, in case the parties are within the degrees aforesaid, or either of them had a former wife or husband, or for impotency or adultery in either of the parties."--_Laws of the Com. of Mass., 1780-1816_, I, 301. [6] "All marriages which are prohibited by law on account of consanguinity or affinity between the parties, or on account of either of them having a former wife or husband then living; all marriages, solemnized when either of the parties was insane or an idiot, and all marriages, between a white person and a negro, Indian or mulatto," shall, if solemnized within the state, be absolutely void, "without any decree of divorce, or other legal process."--_Rev. Stat. of the Com. of Mass._ (1836), 479. The same is true when either of the parties is under...