DIVINA- (kiyafah ;) 7. the art of discovering the road in a TION. desert, (ihtida bi 'l berárá wa'l acfár ;) 8. of finding springs, (riyafah ;) 9. minerals; 10. the prognostication of storms, (nuzúli ghaith;) 11. Hydromancy, (crúfah ;) Spasmatomancy, (ikhtilaj.)

DIVORCE.

Some of these subdivisions are too well known to need further illustration; but of others, as being less familiar, a brief explanation may be given. The second teaches men to foresee and to foretell future or distant events from the images which fancy presents to the mind. This seems to correspond pretty nearly with the Second Sight of the Scotch. The fourth branch seems to be peculiar to the Arabs, and is closely allied to Chiromancy. It consists in predicting the future from the lines and dots on the shoulder blade of a sheep, when placed in the sun; and the discovery of it is ascribed to Ali. The fifth is the art of finding out the figure, peculiarities, occupations, &c. of men or beasts by the traces of their posture, position, and footsteps. This is exemplified in the celebrated story of Nezar and his sons, (Meidanii Prov. a Schultens, p. 301,) which suggested to Voltaire the well known passage in the beginning of Zadig. This, however, is rather the exercise of sagacity and observation, than the result of any supernatural knowledge. Nearly allied to it is the next subdivision, by which the tribe and family of a man, his birth, &c. are inferred from the form of his limbs, his make, gait, appearance, complexion, &c. The most skilful practitioners in this art are the Arabs of the tribe of Medíkh, among whom the study of it is hereditary. Nothing but experience can teach it, says the Imam Shaffi; and it is evidently as remote as the last from Divination in its proper sense. Such are likewise the three following branches, (Nos. 7, 8, 9,) which are acquired by study and observation, not derived from any divine impulse or preternatural faculty. The art of discovering the way through a trackless wilderness, is ascribed to a knowledge of the smell of the soil, and of the position of the stars. It was first learnt, say the Arabs, from horses or camels. Springs, minerals, and approaching storms, add their writers, in like manner may be discovered or foreseen by those who have carefully observed certain external signs in the earth and in the sky, which are infallible evidences of the existence of the one and of the approach of the other. The last branch but one is, however, more properly a kind of Divination, as it enables the adept to show in water or a mirror, the image of an absent person, what he is doing, &c. &c. It was by this art, we are told, that an unlucky husband saw his wife, whom he had left at home, indulging in some unseemly familiarities with another man; and discoveries, supposed to have been thus made, are among the most common incidents introduced into

TION.

the Arabian romances. The last subdivision is pro- DIVINAperly a part of medicine, for it is the art of fortelling from convulsive twitchings of the limbs diseases by DIVORCE. which a man is about to be attacked.

Another mode of predicting future events is called Al-zaïrajiyyah by the Arabs, (D'Herbelot, Zairagiah,) but it is entirely astrological, and therefore does not come under this head. The uzlám, or headless unfeathered arrows, by which Pagan Arabs ascertained the will of Heaven, were certainly instruments of Divination in the manner we have described above. As such they were found in the hands of Hobal and of Abraham, when Mohammed commanded his followers to hew down those idols and cleanse the sanctuary of the Kâbah, (Pococke, Spec. 96;) and as these Divining arrows kept alive the recollection of the idols to whom they were dedicated, he prohibited the use of them. (Koran, v. 99.) Elfál, (the taking of an omen,) another of these practices is much in repute among the Arabs and Persians; aud it exactly corresponds with the Sortes Virgiliana of the Romans, being an augury rather than a species of Divination. Alretem, the tamarisk, signified among the ancient Arabs, the custom of tying together the boughs of one of those shrubs, on setting out on a journey, in order that the fidelity of the traveller's wife might be known to him on his return. If the boughs were found untied it was clear she had been inconstant. The flmu'r-reml, or Geomancy, is another of the occult sciences cultivated in the East, and closely allied to the present subject; it does not, however, strictly belong to it, and may be justly classed with the magic arts, as most of its professors are more desirous of being considered as conjurors than as philosophers.

D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, ad voc. Aktaf, Zairagíah, and Raml.; Alcoranus, ed. Maracci; Sale's Koran; Pococke's Specimen Historia Arabum ; Chardin's Voyages; Sciences des Persans, ch. x. tom. v. p. 430, ed. de Langlès; M. Von Hammer's Encyklopædische Uebersicht der Wissenchaften des Orients, Leipzig, 1804, 8vo. ii. 462, seq.

DIVINATION, in Roman Law, was an inquiry respecting the accuser who should be selected when two or more persons offered themselves for that purpose. Asconius in his argument to Cicero's speech (Divinatio) previous to the trial of Verres, assigns the following reasons for its name, of which the reader may select for himself that which seems least forced. Divinatio dicitur hæc oratio, quia non de facto quæritur sed de futuro quæ est Divinatio et conjectura uter debeat accuAlii ideo putent Divinationem dici quod injurati judices in hac causá sedeant, ut quod velint præsentire de utroque possint. Alii quod res agatur sine testibus, et sine tabulis, et, his remotis, argumenta sola sequantur judices, et quasi Divinent.

sare.

Fr. divorcer; It. divorzare; Low Lat. divortiare; Lat. divertere, diversum, to turn away, aside or >apart; because then the wife divertitur a marito, is turned away from the husband.

To turn or put away or apart;

to part, to separate, to sunder; particularly applied te the separation of the bonds of matrimony.

The same law yt ioyneth by wedlocke without forsaking, the same law yeueth libell of departicion bicause of diuorce, both demned and declared. Chaucer. The Testament of Loue, fol. 309.

DIVORCE. he give it her by the law of Divorces; 10. that it be the husband or his deputy that delivereth it unto her."

The Bill of Divorcement was written by a Scribe. The Divorced woman was not permitted to marry within ninety days, in order that it might be ascertained whether she was pregnant, and thus to prevent her bearing a child concerning whose descent, on the father's side, any doubt might arise.

Josephus is of opinion that the Law does not permit women to Divorce their husbands; and therefore that it prohibits such as may have separated themselves from marrying again without a Bill of Divorcement. (Ant. xv. 11.) The practice, however, was widely different Salome, sister to Herod the Great, put away her husband, as is inferred from Ant. xviii. 7. So also did Herodias, (Mat. xiv. 3; Mark, vi. 17.) The three sisters of the Younger Agrippa Divorced their husbands: namely, Berenice, Polemo King of Pontus; Mariamne, Archelaus; and Drusilla, (who married Felix,) Aziz King of Emesa. (Ant. xx. 15.) The modern Jews throw more obstacles in the way of Divorce. Many formalities are appointed, which consume much time, and give opportunities for reconciliation; when all hope of this is extinct, the Bill of Divorcement is written by a woman, a scribe, or a deaf man, in the presence of one or more Rabbis, on vellum, in square letters, and in twelve lines. Many trifling and mysterious particulars are observed in the characters and mode of writing. The writers, the Rabbis, and the witnesses are all prohibited from being relations among each other, or to either of the parties. A Rabbi then examines the husband closely, to learn if the Divorce be voluntary on his part. Ten witnesses are required to be present to the whole proceeding, two more to the signature, and yet two more to the date of the Bill of Divorcement. If the Rabbi finds the husband fully determined, he commands the wife to open her hands and bring them close to each other, in order to receive the deed, lest it fall to the ground. He then examines the wife; after which the husband presents her with the parchment, and declares her free. The husband may marry again immediately, the wife after an interval of ninety days. (Calmet.)

The Grecian Law of Divorce varied in different States. In Sparta the practice must have been uncommon, for Lysander was fined by the Ephori for repudiating his wife, (Athen. xiii. 1, on the authority of Hermippus ;) and yet the Lacedæmonians, by the institutions of their singular legislator, were not permitted to place much regard on the delicacy of the marriage bed, if the violation of it could be supposed to contribute to the public welfare. In Athens, either husband or wife might procure a Divorce by exhibiting to the Archon a Bill containing some ostensible reason, and receiving the consent of a Jury appointed by that magistrate. Nevertheless, if we may form a judgment from the terms by which this measure was distinguished, as it regarded the different sexes, it may be believed that while in the man it was considered as a prerogative, which he might exercise at his discretion, in the woman it was looked upon, in some degree, as attended with disgrace. Such may be the deduction from the two words àоTоμ, dismission, and amoλeys, desertion. (Petit. Comm. in Leg. Att. vi. 3.) The Bill could not be presented

by proxy, and Plutarch (Alcibiades) has recorded DIVORCE. the advantage which Alcibiades gained by the necessity of this form. His wife, Hipparete, wearied by his infidelities, took refuge in her brother's house. While she was going from this, to appear personally before the Archon, in order to sue out a Divorce, Alcibiades seized her (as he was entitled to do by law) forcibly conveyed her to his home, and compelled her to remain with him till her death. The law, continues Plutarch, by enjoining this personal attendance of the woman, probably designed to give the husband such an opportunity to meet with and recover her. The portions of Divorced women were returned with them; and if the husband failed in doing this, nine oboli per month might be claimed from him as alimony. (Demosth. in Neæram.)

If Plutarch (in Rom.) may be credited, the founder of Rome did not permit a woman on any account to Divorce her husband. The husband might Divorce his wife for three causes: 1. poisoning his children; 2. counterfeiting his keys; 3. adultery. If he put her away on any other account, half his goods were forfeited to the wife, and the other half to Ceres. Whoever Divorced his wife, was also to make an atonement to the Gods of the earth.* It was long, however, before the Roman husbands exercised their privilege, which is believed to have been incorporated with the XII. Tables, and the name of the first who Divorced his wife is handed down to us, (Plutarch, Comp. of Rom. with Theseus ;) a. v. c. 523, Spurius Carvilius Ruga repudiated his wife for sterility. He made oath before the Censors that he was deeply attached to her, and that his act was solely occasioned by her barrenness, and his own wish to beget children for the good of the State. (Dion. Hal. xi. 25; and Aul. Gell. iv. 3.) Notwithstanding this declaration, he became eminently unpopular. Montesquieu has explained this circumstance by stating, that it was not the simple Divorce which created the odium against him, but his obsequiousness to the Censors, who sought to establish a precedent by which they might force the people to bring up their children.

The facility of Divorce in the latter days of the Republic, and in the whole course of Imperial Rome, may be traced in every contemporary writer. The right of the two sexes became equal. Augustus for a time endeavoured to check this licence, and required the presence of seven witnesses, before whom the marriage contract should be torn. If a marriage had been contracted by Confarreatio, the ceremony Diffarreatio (q. v.) was necessary for its dissolution. If by Coemptio (the mutual purchase, in which the bride and bridegroom delivered to each other, with certain forms, a small piece of money,) Remancipatio was required. The common forms used before the above-named witnesses, after the hearing of the

"

Gibbon has so strangely misrepresented this passage, that it is scarcely possible that he can have referred for it to the origi nal. According to Plutarch, Romulus allowed only three causes of a Divorce-drunkenness, adultery, and false keys. Otherwise the husband who abused his supremacy, forfeited half his goods to the wife, and half to the Goddess Ceres, and offered a sacrifice (WITH THE REMAINDER,) to the terrestrial Deities." (Decline and Fall, ch. xliv. vol. viii. p. 61.) It would be difficult to find the remainder of that man's property who had already forfeited two moieties of it. Drunkenness is not mentioned by Plutarch at all; and he plainly implies that all Divorces require an offering of expiation to the terrestrial Gods.

VORCE. contract, were the surrender of the keys by the wife, and her dismissal, in some such words as these. Res tuas tibi habeto. Tuas res tibi agito. Exi, exi ocyus. Vade foras. I foras, Mulier. Cede domo. If it were the wife who Divorced the husband, she said, Valeas, tibi habeas tuas res, reddas meas. In the Repudium, which was an annulment of betrothing before consummation, the form was Conditione tud non utar. The Theodosian Code (tit. de Repudiis) enumerated the following as legitimate causes for Divorce. If the husband could prove the wife to be an adulteress, a witch or a murderess; to have bought or sold to slavery any one freeborn; to have violated sepulchres; committed sacrilege; favoured thieves and robbers; been desirous of feeding with strangers, the husband not knowing or not willing; if she lodge forth without a just and probable cause; or frequent theatres and sights, he forbidding; if she be privy with those that plot against the State; or if she deal falsely; or offer blows. And if the wife can prove her husband guilty of any those forenamed crimes, and of frequenting the company of lewd women in her sight, or if he beat her, she has the liberty to quit him, with this difference, that the man after Divorce may forthwith marry again, the woman not till a year after, lest she may chance to have conceived.

Christianity has put an end to this capricious dissolution of the nuptial bond, which had become so common both in the Jewish and Pagan world at the time of the appearance of our Saviour. When the Pharisees tempted our Lord, by inquiring from him whether it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause; he showed them from the first institutions of nature that God had forbidden polygamy; and then, as a consequence, that Divorce ought not to be permitted unless on account of adultery: although the Jews from the hardness of their hearts were not prepared to receive this doctrine in the time of Moses, (Matt. xix.)

Our Saviour's declaration naturally became the foundation of the law of Divorce in all Christian

countries; but when the Romish Church exalted marriage into a sacrament, Divorce, considered in its legitimate meaning, was abolished; and the Canonists asserted that it was altogether impious and impossible. Hence arose the distinction still maintained in our English law; certain causes subsequent to marriage, and among these adultery, might give rise to a legal separation, in which, however, neither party was permitted to contract a new alliance in the life-time of the other; and certain other causes, existing at the time of marriage, might render it void ab initio; but in neither of these cases could Divorce strictly speaking be said to take place.

Thus therefore Divorce in our Law is of two kinds, a vinculo matrimonii and a menså et thoro. The former absolutely dissolves the marriage, and makes it void from the beginning; the causes of it being precedent to the marriage; as consanguinity or affinity within the Levitical degrees, præcontract, impotency, &c. comprised in the following lines, in which some of the obstacles require a clearer interpretation than it is in our power to afford :

Error, Conditio, Votum, Cognatio, Crimen,
Cultus, Disparitas, Vis, Ordo, Ligamen, Honestas,
Si sis affinis, Si forte coire nequibis,
Si Parochi et duplicis desit præsentia testis,
Raptave sit mulier, nec parti reddita tutæ.

By this the parties are separated pro salute animarum, and DIVORCE. are allowed to marry again, the wife receiving back all she brought with her, and the issue of such marriage being bastardized. (Coke, on Lit. 235.) The latter separates the parties a mensa et thoro for some cause arising subsequent to marriage; as ill treatment or adultery in either of the parties, but does not permit them to contract a second marriage whilst either party is living; for which, since it refuses that which our Saviour assigned to be the only fit cause for Divorce, the best reason that can be given, is that if Divorce were allowed to depend upon a matter within the power of either of the parties, they would probably become extremely frequent. (Blackstone, i. 15. 2.) The Court allows alimony to the wife, unless in case of elopement with the adulterer. This Divorce does not debar the woman of her dower, nor bastardize the issue.

The dissolution a vinculo matrimonii may however be obtained by an Act of Parliament specially for the purpose, after the sentence of Divorce a mensa et thoro has been pronounced in the Spiritual Court. The Bill generally originates in the House of Lords; on the petition for it an official copy of proceedings, and sentence of Divorce a mensa et thoro in the Ecclesiastical Courts, at the suit of the petitioner, must be delivered at the Bar; and upon the second reading the petitioner must attend the House, to be examined at its pleasure at the Bar relative to collusion, &c. A clause must be contained in the Bill, preventing the interinarriage of the offending parties; and when it arrives at a Committee of the House of Commons, evidence must be given that an action for damages has been brought against the seducer, and judgment obtained thereon, or a sufficient reason assigned for the contrary. Till the 44th of Elizabeth a Divorce for adultery was considered to be a vinculo matrimonii; but then in the case of Foliambe, in the Star Chamber, that opinion was changed, and Archbishop Bancroft, having advised with the leading Divines, held that adultery was only a cause of Divorce a mensa et thoro. 3 Salk. 138.

The quarrel of Milton with his wife, and his intention of repudiating her, in consequence of her contemptuous refusal to return to him, need not be detailed here. In defence of the resolution which he had adopted in his resentment he published in 1644, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; restored to the good of both sexes from the bondage of Canon Law, and other mistakes in the true meaning of Scripture in the Law and Gospel compared. Where also are set down the bad consequences of abolishing or condemning as Sin that which the Law of God allows, and Christ abolished not. tained in two Books, and addressed to the Parliament of England and the Assembly. Some of the arguments used in this Treatise might almost lead a careless reader to imagine that it had been penned ironically; the fifth reason advanced in favour of the continuance of the Law of Moses relative to Divorce, (which Milton asserts our Saviour neither did nor could abro

It is con

gate,) is stated as follows, "That nothing more hinders and disturbs the whole life of a Christian than a matrimony found to be incurably unfit." The eighth is, "That it is probable or rather certain, that every one who happens to marry hath not the calling, and therefore upon unfitness found and considered, force ought not to be used." The first edition of this Tract was printed anonymously, "My name I did not publish, as not willing it should sway the reader either for me or against me;