Note 171 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW

The writings of Luther, Milton, and other Reformation and Puritan writers abound in examples of such charges. "For no cause, honest or necessary," says Martin Bucer, "will they permit a final divorce: in the meanwhile, whoredoms and adulteries, and worse things than these, not only tolerating in themselves and others, but cherishing and throwing men headlong into these evils. For although they also disjoin married persons from board and bed, that is, from all conjugal society and communion, and this not only for adultery, but for ill usage, and matrimonial duties denied; yet they forbid those thus parted to join in wedlock with others: but, as I said before, any dishonest associating they permit."—"The Judgment of Martin Bucer," in Milton's Prose Works, III, 292.