DIVORTIUM

divortium  (di-vor-shee-<<schwa>>m),  n.  [Latin]  1.Roman  law.  Divorce; a  severance  of  the

marriage  tie.  •  In  classical  law,  no  grounds  were  required.  Cf.  REPUDIUM.  2.Eccles.  law.  A

decree allowing spouses to separate or declaring their marriage invalid.

“Owing to the fact that the church had but slowly made up her mind to know no such thing as

a  divorce  in  our  acceptation  of  that  term  (i.e.,  the  dissolution  of  a  valid  marriage)  the  term

divortium is currently  used to signify two very  different things, namely (1) the  divortium quoad

torum, which is the equivalent of  our ‘judicial separation,’ and (2) what is very  often called the

divortium  quoad  vinculum  but  is  really  a  declaration  of  nullity.  The  persistence  of  the  word

divortium in the latter case is a trace of an older state of affairs, but in medieval practice the decree

of  nullity  often  served  the  purpose  of  a  true  divorce;  spouses  who  had  quarrelled  began  to

investigate their pedigrees and were unlucky if they could discover no impedimentum dirimens.” 2

Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I

393 n.5 (2d ed. 1899). [Blacks Law 8th]