A Vinculo Matrimonii

Lat. 'from the bond of marriage'. A marriage may be dissolved a vinculo, in many states, as in Pennsylvania, on the ground of canonical disabilities before marriage, as that one of the parties was legally married to a person who was then living; impotence, and the like adultery cruelty and malicious desertion for two years or more. In New York a sentence of imprisonment for life is also a ground for a divorce a vinculo. When the marriage is dissolved a vinculo, the parties may marry again but when the cause is adultery, the guilty party cannot marry his or her paramour.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.