eenscheiding

Eenscheiding is a historical Dutch term referring to the act of separation or dissolution within a relationship, property, or legal bond. The word combines een (‘one’) with scheiding (‘separation’), and it appears in older Dutch legal and ecclesiastical writings. In medieval and early modern Netherlands, eenscheiding could denote different forms of separation, including the formal partition of property within a marriage (a precursor to later forms of property division) or the dissolution of a bond recognized by civil or church authorities.

In civil law, the contemporary term for ending a marriage is echtscheiding; eenscheiding is now largely archaic and is chiefly found in historical documents, legal dictionaries, or scholarly discussions of earlier legal language. The concept may also appear in discussions of marital property within which a separation of assets is described using terms like scheiding van goederen rather than eenscheiding. In ecclesiastical contexts, separation of spouses could be addressed in church records or doctrinal discussions, but the nature of marriage as a sacramental or legally secure bond often meant that formal dissolution was handled differently from modern civil divorce.

Today, eenscheiding is rarely used in everyday Dutch or legal practice and is mainly of interest to historians of law, language, and religion. When encountered, it is typically as an archaism illustrating how earlier Dutch societies described the idea of separation within families or between spouses, or as a terminological reference in dictionaries and academic works.

See also: echtscheiding (divorce), scheiding van goederen (division of property), scheiding (separation) in historical contexts.