separation

separation in law, either the voluntary agreement of husband and wife to live apart or a partial dissolution of the marriage relation by court order. The marriage bond remains, and remarriage of either party is criminal. The separated parties will ordinarily be bound by the provisions of an agreement respecting the amount to be paid for separate maintenance and the adjustment of their property rights. Separation by court decree is a divorce a mensa et thora [from bed and board]; the parties are forbidden to live together, and the wife may have a right to alimony . The laws of the states of the United States vary greatly as to separation; generally, jurisdictions where divorce is difficult to obtain have a more lenient policy toward legal separation than do jurisdictions with easier divorce laws. The main grounds for legal separation are adultery, cruelty, and desertion.

separation The angular distance between two objects on the celestial sphere, particularly the components of a double or multiple star.

sep·a·ra·tion / ˌsepəˈrāshən/ • n. 1. the action or state of moving or being moved apart: the damage that might arise from the separation of parents and children. ∎  the state in which a husband and wife remain married but live apart: legal grounds for divorce or separation | she and her husband have agreed to a trial separation. See also legal separation (sense 1). 2. the division of something into constituent or distinct elements: prose structured into short sentences with meaningful separation into paragraphs. ∎  the process of distinguishing between two or more things: religion involved the separation of the sacred and the profane | the constitution imposed a clear separation between church and state. ∎  the process of sorting and then extracting or removing a specified substance for use or rejection. ∎  short for color separation. ∎  (also stereo separation) distinction or difference between the signals carried by the two channels of a stereophonic system. ∎  Physics & Aeron. the generation of a turbulent boundary layer between the surface of a body and a moving fluid, or between two fluids moving at different speeds. PHRASES: separation of powers an act of vesting the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of government in separate bodies.