Note 330 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW (continued 2)

"From the meaning of pain inflicted on the body it [cruelty] has in recent years attained the extended meaning that includes pain inflicted on the mind. Coldness and neglect may now almost of themselves constitute such cruelty as, coupled with misconduct, will give the right of divorce. The time may very reasonably be looked forward to when almost every act of misconduct will in itself be considered to convey such mental agony to the innocent party as to constitute the cruelty requisite under the Act of 1857. The difference already is very marked when we compare the 'cruelty' of today with the thrashing by the husband that constituted cruelty thirty years ago. Probably in those days the doctrine of a husband's right to administer physical correction to his wife was not entirely discredited. Today it is possible for a woman, with celerity and at little cost, to separate herself from her husband if she be able to prove that he is either a brute or a monster. Forty years ago the vast majority of women were indissolubly tied to their husbands though the whole world knew them to be both brutes and monsters. It is a great change in a short period."—Montmorency, "The Changing Status of a Married Woman," Law Quart. Review, XIII, 191, 192.