Chap. 277.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 5111 of the Code of Virginia,
as amended, relating to dissolution of marriages and divorce. [S 143]

Approved March 17, 1944

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. Section 5111. Upon.decreeing the dissolution of a marriage,
and also upon decreeing a divorce, whether from the bond of matrimony
or from bed and board, and upon decreeing that neither party is entitled
to a divorce the court may make such further decree as it shall deem ex-
pedient concerning the estate and the maintenance of the parties, or
either of them, and the care, custody and maintenance of their minor
children, and may determine with which of the parents the children or
any of them shall remain; and the court may, from time to time after-
wards, on petition of either of the parents, or on its own motion or upon
petition of any probation officer or superintendent of public welfare
which petition shall set forth the reasons for the relief sought, revise
and alter such decree concerning the care, custody, and maintenance of
the children and make a new decree concerning the same, as the circum-
stances of the parents and the benefit of the children may require; and
upon petition of either party may increase, decrease, or cause to cease,
any alimony that may thereafter accrue whether the same has been here-
tofore or hereafter awarded, as the circumstances may make proper ;
provided however, if a stipulation or contract signed by the party to
whom such relief might otherwise be awarded is filed with the pleadings
or depositions, then no decree or order directing the payment of alimony,
suit money, or counsel fee shall be entered except in accordance with
that stipulation or contract unless such party raise objection thereto prior
to entry of the decree. If any person to whom alimony has been awarded
shall thereafter marry, such alimony shall cease as of the date of such
marriage. Upon the entry of a decree of divorce from the bond of matri-
mony, all contingent rights of either consort in the real and personal
property of the other then existing, or thereafter acquired, shall be ex-
tinguished.

When the proceedings are reopened the party or parties sought to be
charged with the support of any child involved in the suit shall ‘be given
such notice by service or order of publication as required in similar
cases.

The court, when it finds the respondent has failed to perform the
order of the court concerning the support of the child or under then exist-
ing circumstances is under the duty to render support or additional sup-
port to the child, may proceed to deal with the respondent as provided
in section fifty-one hundred eleven-a of the Code or it may revise and
alter its decree as to the child and grant leave to the petitioner to pro-
ceed in the appropriate juvenile and domestic relations court in con-
formity with any applicable law.

When the petitioner has been granted leave to proceed in a juvenile
and domestic relations court all proceedings thereafter shall conform to
the provisions of chapter eighty of the Code.