CHAPTEE IT. 



DIVOECE. 



Manner of declaring a divorce Causes for divorce Divorce easy to get 

 Separation Division of property in case of separation Penalty for wife- 

 beating Restrictions on the extravagance of women. 



A DIVOECE was declared in the following manner. The 

 wife had to declare the separation, and the reason of it, three 

 times in three places in the presence of witnesses first, in 

 front of them on a bed ; secondly, in front of the men's door ; 

 and, thirdly, at the Thing; but separation did not prevent 

 either party from marrying again afterwards. 



Mord gave advice to his daughter Unn how she should 

 separate herself from her husband, Rut, when he was not at 

 home. 



"When thou art quite ready thou shalt go to thy bed, 

 and with thee the men who are thy followers ; thou shalt name 

 witnesses at the bedside of thy husband, and declare that thou 

 art separated from him by a lawful divorce, as fairly as is 

 possible after the rules of the Althing and the laws of all the 

 people. The same naming of witnesses thou shalt also have at 

 the men's door, and then thou shalt ride away " (Njala, c. 7). 



The causes for divorce were numerous. A cause of divorce 

 was that of wearing clothes belonging to the opposite sex, 

 as when a man wore a shirt so open that you could see his 

 breast ; or when women wore breeches ; and we find that 

 sometimes these clothes were cunningly made on purpose to 

 bring about a separation. 



One day Thord Ingunnarson asked Grudnin what a woman 

 was liable to if she always wore breeches like men. She 

 answered : 



" ' They are to be punished for that just as a man is 



