A Judicial Separation is obtained by proving one or other of the five grounds
for divorce (see Grounds) but the result is not that the marriage is dissolved
as with divorce but results in a Decree of Judicial Separation. This allows the
Court to make all the orders that it can in divorce proceedings even though the
parties remain married. In the past it has been used as a means of preserving
pension benefits (which have in the past been automatically lost on divorce) or
where the parties do not want a divorce on religious grounds or where they have
been married for less than a year. The advantage of Judicial Separation is that
it provides a peg upon which to hang financial applications. The disadvantage is
that because the parties remain married it is not possible to agree a "Clean
break".