The naming and shaming of lovers implicated in divorce proceedings is expected to disappear from the family courts of England and Wales, ending 150 years of legal history. Family lawyers are strongly backing a government proposal that husbands and wives who want to divorce for adultery be banned from citing as co-respondent the person with whom the spouse had sex. Adultery is one of five "facts" - the single ground is irretrievable breakdown - which a husband or wife must prove to secure a divorce. As one of only two facts which allow a quickie divorce, it is cited in more than one in four divorces. The co-respondent made his entrance with the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, which gave the court power to order him to pay the full costs of the divorce, and large damages to the aggrieved husband.