CHAPTER 108

An Act to amend and reenact § 20-91, as amended, Code of Virginia
relating to grounds for divorce from the bond of matrimony.

[S 54
Approved February 29, 1960

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That § 20-91, as amended, of the Code of Virginia, be amended and re
enacted as follows:

§ 20-91. A divorce from the bond of matrimony may be decreed:

(1) For adultery, or sodomy or buggery;

(2) For natural or incurable impotency of body existing at the time o!
entering into the matrimonial contract;

(3) Where either of the parties subsequent to the marriage has beer
sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary of this State or of any othe)
state of the United States or to confinement in a penitentiary of the Unitec
States, and cohabitation has not been resumed after such confinement (i1
which case no pardon granted to the party so sentenced shall restore sucl
party to his or her conjugal rights) ;

(4) Where prior to the marriage, either party, without the knowledg:
of the other, had been convicted of an infamous offense;

(5) Where either party charged with an offense punishable wit
death or confinement in the penitentiary has been indicted, is a fugitive
from justice, and has been absent for two years;

(6) Where either party wilfully deserts or abandons the other fo:
one year such divorce may be decreed to the party abandoned ;

(7) Where, at the time of the marriage, the wife without the knowledge
of the husband was with child by some person other than the husband; *

(8) Where prior to the marriage the wife had been, without the knowl.
edge of her husband, a prostitute, such divorce may be decreed to the hus.
band; and

(9) On the application of either party if and when the husband ana
wife have lived separate and apart without any cohabitation and without
interruption for three years, and at the time of separation were each resi-
dent and domiciled in Virginia. Divorce on this ground shall not be granted
where service of process is by publication.