TABLE OF CONTENTS

While the theory of sacramental origin of marriage was displaced at the time of Reformation by the contractual theory of marriage, and several inroads were made in the indissolu bility of the union, the proposition that the parties by their own volition could not separate, was firmly fixed and never departed from by the spiritual courts.1 As a result, it was a bad.plea, in opposing a decree of re. [...] 3 then become material to consider how far a compact can be valid which has for its object the contravention of the general policy of the law in settling the relations of domestic life, and which the public is interested to preserve; and which, without dissolving the bond of marriage, would place the parties in some respects in the condition of being single, and leave them in others subject to the. [...] 107 the Chancery Court declared: To decree an Execution of Performance of these Articles was not to invoke the jurisdiction of the Spiritual Court; that the intent of these Articles was to save the Expense of a Sentence in the Spiritual Court; that if these Articles could not be decreed here, they would be of no Force anywhere; that there was no Remedy upon them at Common Law, for there the Wife ·. [...] 9 married woman, or to expunge the concept of guilt and punishment more of the husband who can easily pay than of the wife, whatever her share of responsibility for breakdown of the marriage may have been, and whatever the period of espousal, since as the reasoning goes in the last resort she would have to be supported by the welfare state. [...] After brief excursions into the general validity of these agreements, the analysis would focus upon the scope and validity of the various provisions that are sought to be made by the parties to the marriage, their effect upon substantive rights, the impact of substantive law on these provisions, the effect of matrimonial decrees which either party may proceed to obtain regardless of 2 3At p.