Notes to the Spanish civil code; showing changes effected by American legislation, with citation of cases from Philippines Supreme Court

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1904 Excerpt: ... The Decretal Law of December 6, 1868, abolishing in the Peninsula the special jurisdictions, was extended to the Philippines by a Royal Order of February 19, 1869, which was published in the Gaceta de Manila on June 2, 1869. That Decretal Law contained the following provision: "The ecclesiastical courts shall continue to take cognizance of matrimonial and eleemosynary causes and of ecclesiastical offences, in accordance with the provisions of the canon laws. They shall also have jurisdiction over causes of divorce and annulment of marr1age as provided by the Holy Council of Trent; but incidents with respect to the deposit of a married woman, alimony, suit-money and other temporal affairs shall pertain to the ordinary courts." This did not have the effect of making the canons mentioned therein civil laws. It simply declared that the Church might try the cases referred to according to its own laws in its own courts and that the State would enforce the decrees of the latter. It is not necessary, however, to decide this question as to the decrees of the Council of Trent, for the Partidas do contain provisions relating to the subject of divorce. Law 1, Title 10, of the 4th Partida defines divorce as follows: "Divortium, in latin, means in common speech, separation (departimiento), and is the means by which the wife is separated from the husband, and the husband from the wife, on account of some impediment existing between them, when it is properly proved in Court. And whoever separates the parties in any other way, doing it by force, or contrary to law, will go against that which is said by Jesus Christ, in the Gospel: 'those whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder.' But when the spouses are separated by law, it is not then considered that man separ...