Definition
To condone is to forgive or overlook a known wrong in a manner that, by operation of law, bars the forgiving party from later asserting that wrong as a legal grievance. The term carries weight primarily in two legal contexts:
1. Family law (condonation of marital offense): A spouse who, with full knowledge of the other's marital misconduct — historically adultery, cruelty, or desertion — voluntarily resumes or continues the marital relationship, particularly cohabitation, is said to have condoned the offense. The condoned offense generally cannot then be pleaded as grounds for divorce or legal separation.
2. Tort and employment law: A party who, with knowledge of wrongful conduct, affirmatively permits or acquiesces in it may be found to have condoned that conduct. In employment contexts, an employer who knows of an employee's misconduct and fails to act may be said to have condoned it, with consequences for liability.
Both usages share a core structure: knowledge of the wrong + voluntary acceptance or continuation of the relationship = legal bar or implication against the forgiving party.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To forgive, excuse, or overlook something considered morally wrong or offensive; to allow or accept something generally disliked; to forgive marital infidelity.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To pardon; to forgive; to overlook an offense; especially, to forgive a violation of the marriage law, said of either spouse.
In ordinary speech, to condone something is simply to tolerate or excuse it, often passively — a person might "condone" rudeness merely by not objecting. The legal meaning is more demanding and more consequential: condoning a marital offense requires knowledge, capacity to act, and an affirmative voluntary act (typically resumption of cohabitation) that signals forgiveness. Passive failure to act is generally not enough for legal condonation, and the legal effect — forfeiture of a divorce ground — has no equivalent in everyday usage.
Common Confusion
Condone is frequently confused with condonation: condone is the verb (the act), condonation is the doctrine or the legal result. Black's defines the verb by reference to the noun, which means researchers chasing the operative legal standard will find it under CONDONATION, not here. Additionally, condone in lay speech is often passive ("they condoned it by saying nothing"), while the legal standard historically requires an affirmative act. Researchers applying the lay meaning to historical pleadings or divorce records will overcount instances of legally operative condonation.
Why It Matters in Research
The Black's entries for condone are deliberately skeletal — both editions simply redirect to condonation. This is accurate as far as it goes, but it means that any researcher searching historical legal sources for the operative standard, the elements, or the effect of the act must look under CONDONATION, not CONDONE. Failing to make that pivot is the central research trap this entry exists to flag.
In the corpus of historical divorce records, pleadings, and equity decisions, condone appears frequently as a term of art in fault-based divorce litigation. Its presence in a document signals a fault-based jurisdiction and era: condonation as a divorce defense is largely a creature of pre-no-fault divorce law. After the no-fault revolution beginning in the 1970s, the doctrine lost much of its operational force in American jurisdictions, though it persists in some states and retains relevance in annulment proceedings and certain military law contexts.
In employment and agency law, condone appears in a different register — as a predicate for employer liability or ratification. Here the corpus connections run to RATIFICATION and RESPONDEAT SUPERIOR rather than to family law sources. Researchers should be alert to which doctrinal neighborhood the term is operating in before drawing cross-document comparisons.
When condone appears in older statutory text (particularly 19th-century divorce statutes), it sometimes carries a presumption structure: cohabitation after knowledge of the offense was treated as condonation as a matter of law, not merely as evidence of it. Modern usage tends toward a more fact-specific inquiry.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's editions define condone identically and minimally: "To make condonation of." This is a deliberate cross-reference strategy, not an oversight — the substantive doctrine lives under CONDONATION in those volumes. The Webster's 1913 entry is more instructive than either legal dictionary on the word's meaning, capturing the forgiveness-plus-marital-context sense that the law absorbed. Neither Black's edition addresses the employment or tort usage, reflecting the term's primary legal home in 19th- and early 20th-century divorce jurisprudence at the time of publication. Researchers relying solely on Black's for condone will miss the doctrinal content entirely without following the cross-reference.
Jurisdictional Note
The legal weight of condone varies sharply by jurisdiction and era. In pure no-fault divorce states, the concept is largely moot. In states retaining fault grounds — or where fault affects alimony or property division — condonation (and thus the act of condoning) retains practical relevance. Military law preserves a version of the doctrine in certain misconduct contexts.