Article II: Of the Separation of Bed, Table, and Dwelling

Spouses must preserve the communion of conjugal life, unless a just cause excuses them.

§ 1. Because of the adultery of a spouse, the other spouse, the bond remaining, has the right of dissolving, even in perpetuity, the communion of life, unless he consented to the crime, or gave cause for it, or expressly or tacitly condoned it, or also himself committed the same crime.

§ 2. Tacit condonation is had if the innocent spouse, after he has been made more certain of the crime of adultery, has freely lived with the other spouse with marital affection; but it is presumed unless within six months he has expelled or abandoned the adulterous spouse, or has made a legitimate accusation.

The innocent spouse, whether he has departed legitimately by sentence of a judge or by his own authority, is never held by any obligation of admitting the adulterous spouse again to the partnership of life; he can, however, admit or recall the same, unless with his consent the latter has taken up a state contrary to marriage.

§ 1. If one spouse has given his name to a non-Catholic sect; if he has educated the offspring non-Catholically; if he leads a criminal and ignominious life; if he creates grave danger, whether of soul or of body, for the other; if by cruelties he renders common life too difficult: these and other things of this kind are for the other spouse so many legitimate causes of departing, by authority of the local Ordinary, and also by his own authority, if they are certainly established and there is danger in delay.

§ 2. In all these cases, when the cause of separation ceases, the custom of life is to be restored; but if separation has been pronounced by the Ordinary for a certain or uncertain time, the innocent spouse is not obliged to this, unless by decree of the Ordinary or when the time has elapsed.

Once separation has been instituted, the children are to be educated with the innocent spouse; and if one of the spouses is non-Catholic, with the Catholic spouse, unless in either case the Ordinary, for the good of the children themselves and with their Catholic education always preserved, has decreed otherwise.