History of Divorce

Divorce is perhaps the civil legal issue which most grabs the attention of modern society and one does not have to look far to see high profile media coverage of celebrity divorces and the intrigue surrounding them. Many people have a personal experience of divorce, either of their own marriage or of the marriage of a close relative or friend. Given that 42% of marriages in England and Wales now end by divorce and the average duration of marriages is 11.7 years (Office for National Statistics), it is surprising that divorce has only relatively recently become easier to obtain and for many centuries was first a legal and then a practical impossibility.

In the Anglo-Saxon period in England (pre-1066), there are examples of divorces being legitimate by consent only. It was the medieval interpretation of Christian scripture by Church scholars which led to the concept of marriage as unbreakable. For example, an extract of the Bible at Mark 10:2-12 states: “What God has joined together, let no one separate”.

Until the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, the law of divorce in England and Wales was governed by Ecclesiastical law and was under the jurisdiction of the Church Courts. Broadly, the Church Courts would only declare a marriage a “nullity” (and not allow divorce) with the effect that a marriage was deemed to have never existed, rather than divorced. The grounds for a declaration of nullity were that there was no consent at the time of marriage, there were other grounds of incapacity or that the marriage could not be consummated due to impotency or frigidity on the part of one of the parties. A lack of consent could be proved in several ways. If it could be evidenced that one party faced undue pressure or was insane or generally there had been a mistake, the marriage could be declared a nullity. Alternatively, if the parties were too young, they were deemed to be incapable of giving valid consent to the marriage. The age of consent for an agreement to marry in the future was a mere 7 years old and generally the age of puberty applied for actually entering into a marriage (initially set at 12 years old for girls and 14 years old for boys). The minimum age for validly consenting to marriage was equalised for boys and girls and raised to 16 years old by the Age of Marriage Act 1929, although in England and Wales, you are required to have your parents’ consent to marry if you are 16 or 17 years old.

Incapacity could be shown by the fact that there had been a previous marriage with another spouse, the parties were within a certain degree of blood relationship or a certain degree of affinity relationships. Affinity meant for example that a man who had had sex with a woman’s sister was forbidden to marry that woman. The prohibited degrees of blood relationship always included marriage between a parent and their child and the modern law prohibits marriage in a myriad of blood relationship circumstances, for example marriage to the granddaughter of a former wife until both parties are over 21 years old and where the granddaughter until 18 years old had not been in a family relationship with the potential husband.

This doctrine of nullity bears similarities to the more modern principles of annulment, whereby a marriage can be annulled for several reasons and treated as if it never existed. A marriage can be annulled if the parties are closely related, one party is under 16 years old, one party is already married, the two parties have not had sex with each other since the start of the marriage, one party did not consent to the marriage, one party had a sexually transmitted infection/disease at the time of the marriage or the woman was pregnant by another man at the time of the marriage. An annulment can be applied for at any time after the marriage and the 1 year waiting period before applying for a divorce of a marriage does not apply.

The famous divorce case of Henry VIII in the 16th Century was a flexible interpretation of the Ecclesiastical law principles referred to above and was a key driver of divorce reform in 16th and 17th Century England and Wales. The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer, suggested divorce should be allowed on the grounds of adultery, cruelty, desertion or bitter opposition. Over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, several Acts of Parliament were passed permitting the divorce by wealthy nobles of their wives on the grounds of adultery and private members’ bills in Parliament became common to achieve these divorces. This avenue of divorce became open to less wealthy parties as it became common practice to bring your divorce case first in front of the Ecclesiastical Courts and which would then lead on to a petition to the House of Lords to pass the appropriate Act of Parliament. Adultery was therefore confirmed as a ground for divorce by the above convoluted process.

The Society for Promoting the Amendment of the Law in the 1850s published proposals suggesting that divorce should be dealt with in a separate Court and should be a cheaper process. These proposals were accepted and by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes came into existence and the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction over divorce was abolished. The 1857 reforms only changed procedure and adultery remained as the only ground available for divorce. If a wife was the party claiming a divorce, she had to prove cruelty or desertion, in addition to the act of adultery by her husband.

Abuse of the new procedure by wealthy Victorian families, combined with clashes between the Government of the time and the Church, meant that further reform was slow in coming. A Royal Commission in 1912 suggested that cruelty or 3 years’ desertion should be introduced as separate grounds for divorce and that the rights between wives and husbands should be equalised. The Church was opposed to anything that widened the possibility of divorce and the recommendations of the Royal Commission were defeated in 1914. A further Royal Commission in 1923 attempted the same reforms but only succeeded in equalising the rights between wives and husbands. As a matter of practice, married couples often contrived to stage an act of adultery by the husband to achieve a divorce ‘by consent’. In 1935 a committee within the Church finally agreed to the proposals originally suggested by the Royal Commission in 1912. Further reform suggestions were delayed until post-Second World War and in 1951 a bill was presented in Parliament to permit divorce by consent after separation for 7 years. A Royal Commission argued against this proposal in 1955, however Lord Walker in the arguments of that 1955 Royal Commission dissented and suggested divorce should be permitted where a marriage had irretrievably broken down. After a further 10 years, this approach was endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and was brought into law by the Divorce Reform Act 1969.

The current position is set out in the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and the sole ground for divorce is that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. This breakdown can be proved by the fact of adultery by one of the parties, unreasonable (abusive) behaviour, 2 years’ separation if both parties consent, 2 years’ desertion or 5 years’ separation if only one party consents. Originally under the 1973 Act, the parties had to wait until 3 years into the marriage before a divorce could be applied for but this period was reduced to 1 year by the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984.

Since 2004 in the United Kingdom, people of the same sex have been able to enter into civil partnerships and from 2014, same sex marriages have been lawful. Whilst the rights of same sex married couples are broadly aligned with those of opposite sex married couples, there are several surprising inequalities. Notably adultery as a ground for divorce can only be used by same sex married couples as sexual intercourse is defined as being between a man and a woman and for annulment, the ground of not having had sex with each other since the start of the marriage is not available for same sex married couples.

Following several highly publicised divorce cases, senior judicial figures in England and Wales have called for reform of ‘out-dated’ divorce laws, which are now almost 50 years’ old. The current grounds for divorce necessitate the proving of fault and suggested reforms revolve around introducing the concept of ‘no-fault’ divorces, with a focus on maintaining family and children relationships, as well as achieving more through mediation processes, rather than through the Court system. A ‘no-fault’ divorce reform was introduced into by Parliament in 2015 by way of a private members’ bill but this was not passed. The UK Government’s stated position is that it will consider all the evidence for divorce reform as part of its wider reforms of the family justice system but that the Government would not “rush to a conclusion” regarding divorce reform.

The Semantics of “Sanctuary”: Why Sanctuary Cities are no safe haven

Ben Darlow and Charlie Eastaugh*

Talk of “sanctuary cities” has become flavour of the day in recent months, with a growing interest in their legality and—to the contrary—the unconstitutionality of federal attempts to attack such havens (as demonstrated by a January 2017 Executive Order, analysed by Garett Epps here). Volokh Conspiracy bloggers at the Washington Post have provided insightful commentary in line with the growing interest in this complicated area of constitutional law, including a helpful overview from Ilya Somin here, and executive order analysis here. This week David Post cited the English Legal History Blog, in arguing that the moniker “sanctuary” is misapplied and misleading. We will attempt to support such a claim in more detail.

Contemporary American legal context
Decades-old Supreme Court precedent gives us constitutional context for this issue. First, New York v. United States (1992) made clear that the 10^th Amendment prevents “commandeering” of state governments to enforce participation in federal regulatory programmes. This was applied to the criminal context in Printz v. United States (1997), where a 5-4 majority led by the late Justice Scalia held unconstitutional certain provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act on similar anti-commandeering grounds.

In NFIB v. Sebelius (2012)—as helpfully flagged by Somin—federal funding conditions with the effect of such commandeering are also unconstitutional. In sum, cities (or even full states) are free to operate in a way that rejects federal cooperation, especially with respect to immigration policies and legislative requirements such as that contained in Section 1373 of the United States federal code (8 U.S.C. § 1373). Section 1373 mandates cooperation between states and the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the January 2017 Executive Order has threatened to attach funds to that requirement. Making funding conditional on such strictures is likely to engage a constitutional question under the 10^th Amendment (as outlined above), the 4^th Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the 14^th Amendment’s due process clause, which have been held applicable to “persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.”

The English common law privilege of Sanctuary was born out of principles that pre-date the common law itself. The basis, definition, and limitations of Sanctuary lead to the strong conclusion that the semantics of naming US immigration havens as “sanctuary cities” is at best misleading and ill-founded. At worst, it severely muddies the waters of discussion, preventing serious analysis in this important area. Appreciating the origins of common law Sanctuary is therefore vital to understanding contemporary use of the term.

Origins of Ecclesiastical Sanctuary
St. Augustine of Rome’s successful conversion of the Saxons to Christianity in the 6^th Century AD introduced the idea of ecclesiastical Sanctuary to the ruling Saxon King, Aethelbert. In 597 AD—in support of his newly-adopted religion—Aethelbert introduced severe penalties for interrupting the peace of the Church. Clearly, the concept of Sanctuary at its English origin was, and remained to be until its abolition, an ecclesiastical principle and a creature of the Christian Church.

Sanctuary’s original intention in these earliest times was to protect a criminal from the devastating impact of vigilante justice at the hands of his own family and friends—fundamentally opposed to the contemporary notion of an asylum-seeker, who is likely to find refuge with those close to them. Sanctuary was used to nullify the blood feuds that wreaked havoc in Saxon communities and itself interfered with the pre-cursor to sovereign jurisdiction. William the Conqueror—upon his successful conquest of Saxon England in 1066—adopted many of the Saxon laws already in place, including those of Sanctuary. Later Norman Kings continued to support this privilege without controversy.

Around 1250, English common law was clear: a criminal could take Sanctuary in Churches; other consecrated ground; or even within the confines of a consecrated cemetery—it was fundamentally an Ecclesiastical privilege. If the fleeing criminal had no physical ground in which to take refuge, his Sanctuary began as soon as he placed his hand on the Church door. At this time, Sanctuary was still intended to give the common law legal process sufficient time to effectively run its course and not to provide indefinite refuge to criminals. It was a requirement for the criminal to admit his guilt—again drawing a stark contrast with any modern engagement of the term.

Indeed, it was a settled common law principle in the 13^th Century that Sanctuary should last no longer than 40 days. After that period had ended, the Church was no longer allowed to provide food to the criminal and the authorities seeking the criminal hoped this would starve him out of his Sanctuary. Any person providing sustenance after the 40 days could be convicted as an accessory to the criminal’s original crime. Thereafter, the criminal had three options open to him. One, he could surrender, two, be exiled from the country at the escort of the authorities, or three: flee to another Sanctuary to begin a fresh 40 day limitation period. The extent to which this Sanctuary-hopping occurred is unclear, but certainly the privilege of Sanctuary was open to abuse.

Sanctuary curtailed
Over the next two centuries, due to abuses of Sanctuary, English public opinion developed to view the practice as the Church openly harbouring criminals. There are even instances of criminals in London successfully running their nefarious activities from within the confines of a Sanctuary. This abuse of Sanctuary was abhorrent to the English public and was seen as far removed from its original intentions as a safe haven from vigilante justice.

Sanctuary was later diluted in 1504 when King Henry VII successfully asked Pope Innocent VIII to allow the authorities to enter Churches and apprehend a criminal when they committed a fresh crime whilst taking Sanctuary. This was an attempt to curb the abuses mentioned above. Henry VIII followed in his father’s footsteps and initiated further reforms. A significant case in 1519 involving St. John’s Priory and Westminster Abbey (two large sanctuaries) challenged the remit of Sanctuary for murder and other heinous crimes. Henry was moved to state that: “I will have [Sanctuary] reformed which has been encroached by abuse, and brought back to the true intention of the makers”.

In 1540, the English Parliament abolished the use of Sanctuaries for the worst crimes such as murder, rape, and arson. It had already been abolished for High Treason. Following these restrictions, Henry VIII established eight Sanctuary cities where approved asylum seekers had to remain permanently. These national Sanctuaries quickly fell out of use in the reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI, in the mid-16^th Century.

During his reign, Henry VIII attempted to restrict the use of Sanctuary by making it unappealing for criminals. A Sanctuary seeker had to wear a 10-inch badge on their upper arm, often had to adhere to a curfew, and had to be branded with an ‘A’ on their right thumb. A 16^th Century Sanctuary became something much more closely aligned with a gulag than a haven of respite: not something the Constitutional Framers would transpose over a century later.

Following continued controversy, negative public opinion and the numerous restrictions outlined above, Parliament finalised the reform in 1624 by passing a Statute that stated “no Sanctuary or Privilege of Sanctuary shall be hereafter admitted or allowed in any case”. Plainly, 150 years prior to American Independence, the English principle of Sanctuary had been diluted into obscurity, with the original concept of a place of haven long consigned to the annals of history, excluded from the common law.

It is worth noting at this juncture that there was no mention of Sanctuary Cities (or anything like them) in the 85 Federalist Papers, nor in the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Although the Founders did describe the Capitol as a “sanctuary of liberty” and Jefferson remarked that it would be the nation’s “first temple”, no illusions were made as to the importance of federalism, the notion that states’ rights were fundamental to a successfully operating Republic, and the separation of Church and State.

The 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia: no mention of Sanctuary Cities

Closing remarks
As the foregoing outline has shown, the common law principle of Sanctuary is an English ecclesiastical principle deriving from early Christianity. Its status as a bargaining chip between the Church and the State in the 15^th and 16^th Centuries led to its ultimate abolition as a common law practice, far removed from its haven-providing origin. The Philadelphia Convention of the late 18^th Century included an emphatic decision to separate the Church from the State, with the Union founded on this secular basis. According to long-standing judicial precedent it is plainly unconstitutional under the republican Constitution for the federal Government to commandeer sovereign state cities for its own bidding in an unfettered way. Contemporary American usage of the term “sanctuary cities”—as has become de rigeur in modern political discourse—cannot be divorced from the historical (originalist) underpinnings of the term “Sanctuary”. To do so causes injury to tenets of federalism, constitutional law, and endangers the secularity of the debate.

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*Charlie Eastaugh is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Surrey and he has a PhD in US Constitutional Law.

His contributions were limited to those of legal accuracy and any criticism or opinion expressed in this commentary remains that of the English Legal History Blog.

The Privilege of Sanctuary

Westminster Abbey was an extremely popular Sanctuary.

In medieval England, a criminal could go to a church and claim protection from the law. The authorities and the processes of criminal justice could not reach him. This was based on the idea that no force could be used on the consecrated and holy ground of the churches.

This privilege, called sanctuary, could be taken up by any criminals, ranging from murderers, rapists and thieves to the simple debtor who owed a sum of money.

The common law of the time stated that the privilege of sanctuary could only be used for up to 40 days. However, there were in existence some large sanctuaries (such as Westminster Abbey) that could house hundreds of criminals and had the facilities for them to stay indefinitely. When the criminals attempted to continue their criminal activities from the Abbey, the practice of these large sanctuaries was heavily frowned upon by the authorities and the public.

A criminal taking sanctuary had to, within the time limit of 40 days, decide on one of two courses of action. He could either turn up at the court and declare he was ready for a trial or he could elect to leave the country forever. He would then be escorted safely to the nearest port and would journey to a new country.

Judges attempted on several occasions to stop the proliferation of sanctuaries by stating that no new ones could be made without the King’s consent. However, many were already in existence and continued their activities.

There was a significant case between 1516 and 1520 regarding a large sanctuary at St John’s Priory. This led to calls for reform and Henry VIII declared that the ancient kings and old popes never had the intention of letting the sanctuaries be used to such a gross extent.

Henry proceeded to abolish almost all sanctuaries and removed the possibility of using the privilege for almost all crimes. The practice did not breathe its last until a statute of 1624 which stated ‘no sanctuary or privilege of sanctuary to be hereafter admitted or allowed in any case’.