Add centered text to the middle of a horizontal rule

I'm wondering what options one has in xhtml 1.0 strict to create a line on both sides of text like-so:

Section one
----------------------- Next section -----------------------
Section two

I've thought of doing some fancy things like this:

<div style="float:left; width: 44%;"><hr/></div>
<div style="float:right; width: 44%;"><hr/></div>
Next section

Or alternatively, because the above has problems with alignment (both vertical and horizontal):

<table><tr>
<td style="width:47%"><hr/></td>
<td style="vertical-align:middle; text-align: center">Next section</td>
<td style="width:47%"><hr/></td>
</tr></table>

This also has alignment problems, which I solve with this mess:

<table><tr>
<td style="border-bottom: 1px solid gray; width: 47%">&nbsp;</td>
<td style="vertical-align:middle;text-align:center" rowspan="2">Next section</td>
<td style="border-bottom: 1px solid gray; width: 47%">&nbsp;</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr></table>

In addition to the alignment problems, both options feel 'fudgy', and I'd be much obliged if you happened to have seen this before and know of an elegant solution.

Solution

Flexbox is the solution:

.separator {
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  text-align: center;
}

.separator::before,
.separator::after {
  content: '';
  flex: 1;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #000;
}

.separator:not(:empty)::before {
  margin-right: .25em;
}

.separator:not(:empty)::after {
  margin-left: .25em;
}

<div class="separator">Next section</div>

Nowadays every browser supports it, and you can ensure compatibility with decade-old browsers by adding respective vendor prefixes if needed. It would degrade gracefully anyways.