This Act may be cited as the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Amendment Act, 1920, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

Section seven of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the words “and that there is no legal ground why the same should not be granted, may,” and substituting the words “may, in its discretion.”

If the respondent shall fail to comply with a decree of the Court for restitution of conjugal rights, such respondent shall thereupon be deemed to have been guilty of desertion without reasonable cause, and a suit for dissolution of marriage may forthwith or at any time thereafter be instituted, and a decree nisi for the dissolution of the marriage may, in the discretion of the Court, be pronounced on the ground of desertion, although the period fixed by the principal Act in the case of desertion may not have elapsed since the failure to comply with the decree for restitution of conjugal rights.

It shall be lawful for the Court, in its discretion, on the petition of either of the parties to a decree of judicial separation, or to a separation order made by a Stipendiary Magistrate or by a Resident Magistrate, or to a deed or agreement of separation, or separation by mutual consent, when such decree, order, deed, or agreement is in full force and has so continued for not less than three years, to pronounce a decree of dissolution of marriage between the parties, and in making such decree, and in all proceedings incidental thereto, the Court shall have the same powers as it has in making a decree of dissolution in the first instance.

Section twenty-one of the principal Act is hereby amended—