JUDICIAL SEPARATION, the termina tion by process of law of the conjugal rights and obligations of husband and wife. In many countries where divorce is either not recog nized at all or is very difficult to obtain, judicial separation affords a legal relief against, if not a remedy for, intolerable marriage conditions. It is therefore frequently resorted to in coun tries that are strongly Roman Catholic, owing to the stand taken by that Church against the dissolution of the marriage contract, which is considered in the light of a sacrament of re ligion. In most of the countries of Europe, where old customs, laws and traditions change slowly, the securing of a divorce is a very diffi cult matter, even where the provisions of the law make it possible; and here judicial separa tion is resorted to as affording quicker and easier relief and less public notice. This con dition obtains in England and her colonies. In the United States, however, where many at tempts have been made by the various States of the Union to regulate the question of the legal separation of man and wife, more or less liberal divorce laws have been placed upon the statute books of most of the States. In the legal sense of the term judicial separation is not a divorce since it does not dissolve the marriage bonds, but simply requires the con tracting parties to live apart as though they were not husband and wife. Divorce, on the other hand, is the dissolution of the marriage ties. The parties to the divorce are generally permitted to marry again, though the divorce decree sometimes prohibits one or both of them permanently, or for a certain specified time.
In effect the judicial separation is, in many respects, similar to that of the decree of divorce. It destroys the right of husband and wife to cohabit (consortium) or to enjoy one an other's society as married parties. As it has the result of making the parties to the judicial separation, in a legal sense, individuals, it re lieves the husband of the support of his wife or of the payment of all debts and obligations contracted by her. But as the parties to the decree of judicial separation are still husband and wife, in the eyes of the law, neither, under the terms and intent of the decree, can marry again. Any such attempt would be legal bigamy and adultery. Nor does legal separation gen erally interfere with the property relationship of husband and wife or any business contracts, obligations or relationships they may have en tered into previous to the decree of judicial separation. The husband, as the head of the family, is still the legal guardian of his chil dren unless expressly deprived of this, or hav ing voluntarily resigned it in the legal process of the securing of the decree. Although legally separated, the wife, on the death of her husband, has the same relation to him and his estate and other possessions as though no separation had taken place. The husband, in the same manner, in the case of the death of his wife, has all the rights given by the marriage contract. See