The "oidor de casados" was a special type of judge that arose to deal with the de facto separation of many married couples during the colonization of the New World and the fact that many married men abandoned their lawful wives upon leaving Spain and entered into informal relationships with either native or European women. In order to deal with this, the crown felt it was necessary to create this office to compel, through legal coercion, the reconciliation of the marriage couple. An example of this problem is the notorious case of Pedro de Valdivia. The Audiencia of Lima, under the direction of President (and acting viceroy) Pedro de la Gasca forced Valdivia to repudiate his mistress, Inés de Suárez, and to bring his wife Marina Ortíz de Gaete to Chile. Over time, the powers of the "oidor de casados" evolved to cover all types of lawsuits between a married couple. Due to the general use of the word "oidor", the term was also applied to the clerics who served as judges in ecclesiastical courts, although they had nothing to do with the "audiencias".