Definition
NII is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase *a vinculo matrimonii*, meaning "from the bond of matrimony." In law, a divorce *a vinculo matrimonii* — commonly shortened to "a vinculo" or rendered in shorthand as NII — is a total dissolution of the marriage, releasing both parties entirely from their matrimonial obligations. It is distinguished from a divorce *a mensa et thoro* (from bed and board), which is a legal separation that suspends the duties of cohabitation without severing the marriage bond itself.
The abbreviation NII derives from the Latin construction: *a* (from) + *vinculo* (the bond) — with NII representing the abbreviated form as it appears in older legal records, pleading books, and court documents where space and convention favored contraction.
Common Confusion
NII is frequently encountered in historical legal records alongside the abbreviation AMT (*a mensa et thoro*). Researchers unfamiliar with the shorthand may misread NII as referring to a separation rather than a full dissolution, or may conflate the two forms of divorce entirely. The practical distinction is significant: a divorce NII terminated the marriage and restored the parties' capacity to remarry; a divorce AMT did not. Modern no-fault divorce statutes have replaced both categories in most jurisdictions, but the historical distinction remains essential for reading pre-twentieth-century court records, estate documents, and status determinations.
Why It Matters in Research
The abbreviation NII appears most often in pre-twentieth-century court records, chancery proceedings, ecclesiastical court transcripts, and probate documents where marital status affected inheritance, legitimacy of children, and capacity to contract. Researchers working in colonial American, early federal, or English legal records will encounter both the full Latin phrase and the abbreviated form.
Several navigational traps exist. First, NII and its full form *a vinculo matrimonii* are not always indexed consistently — some digests and reporters use the Latin, some use the abbreviation, and some use the translated phrase "divorce from the bond of marriage" without cross-referencing the others. Second, because ecclesiastical courts in England historically handled matrimonial causes, primary sources may be housed in church court records rather than common law or equity repositories, requiring researchers to look outside standard legal archives. Third, legitimacy of children born of the marriage was sometimes treated differently depending on whether a divorce NII was granted on grounds of a pre-existing impediment (rendering the marriage void ab initio) versus grounds that dissolved a valid marriage — a distinction that appears in property and inheritance disputes long after the divorce itself.
For Law Mind corpus researchers, entries touching on marriage, legitimacy, dower, curtesy, and intestate succession may all require understanding of whether a prior dissolution was NII or AMT, and on what grounds it was granted.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in close agreement on the core definition: a divorce NII is a total divorce dissolving the marriage tie and releasing the parties wholly from matrimonial obligations. Both cite Blackstone's *Commentaries* (1 Bl. Comm. 440) and Stephen's *Commentaries* (2 Steph. Comm. 310–311) as authority, reflecting the standard nineteenth-century treatment of the topic.
Burrill adds the Latin maxim that Black's also records: *Divortium dicitur a divertendo, quia vir divertitur ab uxore* — "Divorce is called from divertendo, because a man is diverted from his wife" — drawn from Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 235). This maxim has no operative legal force today but appears in historical treatises as a mnemonic device explaining the term's derivation.
Neither historical dictionary addresses the transition from ecclesiastical to civil jurisdiction over divorce proceedings, which is significant context for researchers encountering NII in English versus American sources. In England, full divorce NII was unavailable through ecclesiastical courts and required a private Act of Parliament until the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 created civil divorce jurisdiction. American jurisdictions diverged much earlier, with legislative and later judicial divorce available in many states from the colonial period onward. This jurisdictional evolution is absent from both dictionary entries and must be supplied from external sources.
Jurisdictional Note
The availability and grounds for divorce NII varied significantly across American states in the nineteenth century, ranging from strict fault-based grounds to relatively liberal legislative divorce in some jurisdictions. English law followed a separate development through ecclesiastical courts and private Acts of Parliament. Researchers working across jurisdictions should not assume that NII in one legal system maps cleanly onto the same term in another.