Definition
Condonation is the conditional forgiveness by one spouse of a matrimonial offense committed by the other — most commonly adultery or cruelty — that would otherwise entitle the forgiving spouse to a divorce. The forgiveness is conditional: if the offending spouse repeats the offense, or commits a new marital offense, the condonation is revoked and the original offense may be revived as grounds for divorce. Condonation operates as a defense in divorce proceedings, raised by the offending party to defeat the petitioner's claim on the grounds that the petitioner forgave the conduct and resumed normal marital relations.
Condonation may be express (stated in words or writing) or implied (inferred from conduct, most typically the resumption of sexual cohabitation after the offending party knew of the offense).
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The condoning of an offence; the forgiveness of matrimonial infidelity; a legal defense made when an accuser had forgiven or chosen to ignore an act about which they were legally complaining.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of condoning or pardoning; forgiveness, either express or implied, by a husband of his wife or by a wife of her husband, for a breach of marital duty, as adultery, with an implied condition that the offense shall not be repeated.
Here, the common-language and legal meanings align closely — Webster's 1913 definition is drawn directly from legal usage. The gap worth noting is subtle but important: ordinary usage suggests simple forgiveness, while the legal doctrine carries a structural condition. The forgiveness is not absolute; it is contingent on non-repetition, and resumption of cohabitation triggers it automatically regardless of subjective intent.
Common Confusion
CONDONATION AND SIMPLE FORGIVENESS
In common speech, forgiving a wrong ends the matter. In law, condonation does not extinguish the underlying offense — it suspends it conditionally. A subsequent offense by the same party, or even a new and distinct offense, can revive the condoned act as grounds for divorce. Researchers should not read "forgiveness" in older divorce pleadings as a permanent bar; the conditional structure must be examined.
Core Elements
For condonation to operate as a valid defense in divorce proceedings, historical doctrine generally required:
1. KNOWLEDGE: The forgiving spouse must have known of the matrimonial offense at the time of the forgiveness.
2. FORGIVENESS: The injured spouse must have actually forgiven the offense, expressly or by conduct.
3. RESUMPTION OF COHABITATION: Particularly for implied condonation, the parties must have resumed marital relations — living together and, in most authorities, resuming sexual intercourse — after the knowledge and forgiveness.
4. CONDITIONALITY: The forgiveness is implicitly conditioned on future good conduct; violation of the condition revives the right to sue on the original offense.
Why It Matters in Research
Condonation appears almost exclusively in the divorce law context in pre-twentieth-century legal materials. Researchers working with historical divorce records, ecclesiastical court records, or early American divorce proceedings will encounter it as a standard affirmative defense alongside recrimination and collusion.
Several navigational points deserve attention. First, the doctrine is fault-divorce specific. Condonation as a legal defense exists only within a fault-based divorce framework. In jurisdictions that have adopted no-fault divorce — which is now the rule throughout the United States — condonation as a standalone bar to divorce is functionally obsolete. Searching for condonation in modern family law materials outside of fault-based contexts, or in jurisdictions that retain fault grounds, will yield little. The term survives mainly in historical materials, comparative law discussions, and jurisdictions that still recognize fault.
Second, the resumption-of-cohabitation trigger creates research traps in historical sources. Courts differed on whether cohabitation alone implied condonation, or whether sexual intercourse was required, or whether the injured party's state of mind was controlling. Older English ecclesiastical decisions — heavily cited by American courts — were not uniform on this point, and American jurisdictions split further. Black's citations to California, Iowa, Missouri, and New York cases illustrate that doctrine varied at the state level even within the same era.
Third, implied condonation from conduct was contested ground. A spouse who continued living in the same household for economic or practical reasons, without a true restoration of the marital relationship, might or might not be held to have condoned the offense. Researchers reading judicial opinions must attend to how individual courts drew this line.
Fourth, the conditional nature of condonation — that a new offense revives the old one — means that divorce petitions sometimes list a string of offenses, some of which were previously forgiven. The pleading strategy requires understanding which acts are offered as independent grounds and which are offered to demonstrate revival of condoned acts.
Finally, condonation appears in a minority of employment and contract law contexts in modern usage, where it refers to an employer's implicit acceptance of employee misconduct by failing to act, or a party's acceptance of a breach by continuing performance. The conceptual structure is analogous but the doctrine is distinct. Researchers should not carry divorce-law doctrine into those contexts without independent verification.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge closely on this term, which is unusual and reflects how doctrinally settled condonation was by the mid-nineteenth century.
Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd editions) define condonation as "the conditional remission or forgiveness" of a matrimonial offense, with the condition being non-repetition — language that has passed nearly verbatim through successive editions. Both editions reach to English ecclesiastical sources for authority, citing Haggard's Ecclesiastical Reports, reflecting the doctrine's origins in church court jurisdiction over marriage.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary offers the same core definition and quotes the formulation from an English case: "A blotting out of an imputed offence against the marital relation so as to restore the offending party to the same position he or she occupied before the offence was committed." This restorative framing is useful — condonation does not merely bar the suit, it notionally returns both parties to their pre-offense status, which is why a new offense can undo it.
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the fullest treatment of the express/implied distinction, noting that implied condonation arises from conduct — for instance, where the injured party, knowing of the offense, voluntarily resumes cohabitation. Burrill cites Shelford's treatise on Marriage and Divorce, a standard English authority.
Anderson's Dictionary of Law does not appear to contain a substantive entry on condonation in the retrieved material; the extracted text pertains to a separate term (repugnant conditions). Researchers should not rely on Anderson's for this doctrine.
None of the historical dictionaries address the modern survival (or extinction) of the doctrine under no-fault divorce reform, which began in earnest in the United States in 1969. That gap is significant: the historical sources treat condonation as a live and functioning doctrine, which it no longer is in most American jurisdictions.
Jurisdictional Note
Condonation as a formal affirmative defense to divorce is largely inoperative in U.S. jurisdictions that have adopted no-fault divorce as the exclusive ground, since marital fault is irrelevant to dissolution. In jurisdictions that retain fault grounds alongside no-fault grounds — a minority of U.S. states — condonation may still be raised defensively. The doctrine remains more active in some Commonwealth jurisdictions that preserve fault-based divorce grounds. Researchers working across jurisdictions should verify the current fault/no-fault framework before applying historical condonation doctrine.