Chap. 138.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 5106 of the Code of Virginia,
as heretofore amended, relating to how suits for divorce instituted and
conducted. [H B 127]

Approved March 14, 1938

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That sec-
tion fifty-one hundred and six of the Code of Virginia, as heretofore
amended, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 5106. How instituted and conducted; marriage license to
be filed with bill—Such suit shall be instituted and conducted as other
suits in equity, except that the bill shall not be taken for confessed,
nor shall a divorce be granted on the uncorroborated testimony of the
parties or either of them; and, whether the defendant answer or not,
the cause shall be heard independently of the admissions of either
party in the pleadings or otherwise; and no process or notice in such
proceedings shall be served in this State, except by officers authorized
to serve the same. Costs may be awarded to either party as equity
and justice may require. With every bill praying a divorce, whether
a mensa et thoro or a vinculo matrimonii, there shall be filed a duly
certified copy of the marriage license, with certificate of time and place
of marriage by the person who performed the ceremony, if the mar-
riage is alleged to have taken place in this State, except where it is
alleged in said bill that such certified copy cannot be obtained, unless
the same shall have been lost or destroyed. Any interlocutory or
final decree granting a divorce a mensa et thoro or a vinculo matri-
monii as the case may be entered in such suit shall contain a recital
showing the race of the husband and wife; but the failure of such
decree to contain such recital shall not affect the validity of such de-
cree or divorce.