The court order dissolving a marriage is called a decree, and is made in two stages. The first stage is the decree nisi. ‘Nisi’ is Latin for ‘unless’. When a judge pronounces the decree nisi in a divorce case, s/he is saying that the marriage is to be dissolved unless something, for example the appearance of new evidence, happens to change the situation.

A few years ago the government of the day decided to modernise divorce procedure. ‘Decrees’ were to be replaced by ‘orders’ and ‘decree nisi’ was to become ‘conditional order’. The new divorce procedure became law, but has never been implemented, so we still have ‘decree nisi’. More recently, civil partnerships for same-sex couples have been introduced and they have the modern terminology: not ‘decree nisi’ but ‘conditional order’.

All a bit of a muddle, which one day no doubt will be rationalised.