a mensa et thoro

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin a mensa et thoro (“from board and bed”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /eɪ ˈmɛnsə ˌɛt ˈθɔːɹəʊ/

Adjective

a mensa et thoro (not comparable)

1. (historical, law, of a divorce) That does not dissolve the marriage bond, but merely authorizes the husband and wife to live apart from each other.
   • 1864, Benjamin Vaughan Abbott, Austin Abbott, A digest of New York Statutes and Reports: From the earliest period to the year 1860, 3rd edition, volume II, page 533:

     A divorce a mensa et thoro, obtained by the wife, is not a bar to her right of dower.

   • 2003, B. J. Sokol, Mary Sokol, Shakespeare, Law, and Marriage, page 144:

     The long-defunct possibility of a divorce for adultery allowing remarriage was proposed anew by Cranmer,²⁵ who considered that a divorce a mensa et thoro offended against the duty to cohabit insisted on by the Church.

   • 2006, Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, And Civic Culture in Late Medieval London, page 23:

     Under specific circumstances, two other kinds of marriage termination, both called divorce (divorcium), could be declared by the ecclesiastical courts of late medieval England: divorce a mensa et thoro ( “from table and bed”) and divorce a vinculo (“from the bond”). […] Divorce a mensa et thoro resulted in what we would term separation.

Adverb

a mensa et thoro (not comparable)

1. (historical, law, of a divorce) Such as not to dissolve the marriage bond, but merely to authorize the husband and wife to live apart from each other.
   • 1867, Alexander Mansfield Burrill, “Divorce a mensa et thoro”, in A Law Dictionary and Glossary, page 504:

     By the recent statute 20 & 21 Viet c. 85, § 7, no divorce can in future be granted à mensa et thoro, but a decree of judicial separation is to be pronounced, having the like effect.

Coordinate terms

• a vinculo
• a vinculo matrimonii

See also

• separation