The Vermont Statutes Online
The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly.
NOTE: The Vermont Statutes Online is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience.
Subchapter
002
:
DIVORCE
(Cite as: 15 V.S.A. § 551)
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§ 551. Grounds for divorce from bond of matrimony
A divorce from the bond of matrimony may be decreed:
(1) for adultery in either party;
(2) when either party is sentenced to confinement at hard labor in the State prison in
this State for life, or for three years or more, and is actually confined at the time
of the bringing of the libel; or when either party being without the State, receives
a sentence for an equally long term of imprisonment by a competent court having jurisdiction
as the result of a trial in any one of the other states of the United States, or in
a federal court, or in any one of the territories, possessions, or other courts subject
to the jurisdiction of the United States, or in a foreign country granting a trial
by jury, and is actually confined at the time of the bringing of the libel;
(3) for intolerable severity in either party;
(4) for willful desertion or when either party has been absent for seven years and not
heard of during that time;
(5) on complaint of either party when one spouse has sufficient pecuniary or physical
ability to provide suitable maintenance for the other and, without cause, persistently
refuses or neglects so to do;
(6) on the ground of permanent incapacity due to a mental condition or psychiatric disability
of either party, as provided for in sections 631-637 of this title; or
(7) when a married person has lived apart from his or her spouse for six consecutive months
and the court finds that the resumption of marital relations is not reasonably probable. (Amended 1969, No. 264 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; 1971, No. 39, eff. May 1, 1971; 1971, No. 238 (Adj. Sess.), § 1, eff. April 6, 1972; 1973, No. 201 (Adj. Sess.), § 9; 2013, No. 96 (Adj. Sess.), § 69.)