It is based on the 1921 British play of the same name, written by Clemence Dane as a reaction to a law passed in Britain in the early 1920s that allowed insanity as grounds for a woman to divorce her husband.

She has not loved him for years, is frightened by him and has been counting on her upcoming marriage to Gray, who helped her obtain a divorce based on Hilary's insanity.

He cannot accept that the marriage has long since ended until his family doctor arrives and admonishes Hilary, telling him in Sydney's presence that his children should not have been born.

After the doctor tells her that her children would be at risk of inheriting Hilary's mental problems, she breaks her engagement to Kit and sends him away.

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Mordaunt Hall called A Bill of Divorcement "an intelligent, restrained and often stirring picture," praising Hepburn's performance as " exceptionally fine ... one of the finest seen on the screen.

"[3] According to RKO records, the film earned a profit of $110,000 during its first year of release after cinema circuits deducted their exhibition percentage of box-office ticket sales.