CHAPTER 363

An Act to amend and reenact § 20-91, as amended, of the Code of Virginia,
relating to grounds of divorce from the bond of matrimony. S888)

Approved March 31, 1964

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That § 20-91, as amended, of the Code of Virginia, be amended and
reenacted 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
of entering into the matrimonial contract;

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

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

(5) Where either party charged with an offense punishable with
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 for one
year such divorce may be decreed to the party abandoned;

(7) Where, at the time of the marriage, the wife without the knowl-
edge 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
knowledge of her husband, a prostitute, such divorce may be decreed to
the husband; and

__ (9) On the application of either party if and when the husband and
wife have lived separate and apart without any cohabitation and without
interruption for * two years. A plea of res adjudicata or of recrimination
with respect to any other provision of this section shall not be a bar to
either party obtaining a divorce on this ground.