THE LAW OF DIVORCE IN SWITZERLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume X, Issue 2774, 17 March 1879, Page 3

THE LAW OF DIVORCE IN SWITZERLAND.

THE Geneva correspondent of the " Times " writes :—The people of Switzerland, who possess so great a variety of political institutions and have tried so ninny experiments in social economy, sanctioned some years ago the introduction of what is virtually unlimited facility of divorce. Dissolution of matrimony is decreed for the most trivial of causes. The result of this state of things as disclosed in a return just issued by the Koileral Statistical Bureau, is rather curious than satisfactory, and does not speak well for the cll'ect of the experiment on the domestic happiness of the Swiss people. The figures set forth in the report in question refer to 1577. In that year tho various Courts of the Confederation decreed 1,0,%' dissolutions of matrimony and 194 temporary separations, being at the rate of 47-1 for every 100 marriages ; while the rate per per cent, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, is oniy O'G'4 ;in Wurtemburg, 1*71; and in Saxony, 219 The proportion varies greatly in the different cantons, and an might he expected, is lower in Roman Catholic than in Protestant districts. In Uri, Ohcrwalden, and Uuterwaldcn divorces appear to be unknown, the rate per cent, in these cantons being expressed by a cipher. In V'alais it is 0 3.'}; Schwiz, 105; Lucerne, 1-59; Freiburg, 1.4; and Zug, 2 07; while in Claris it rises to 7 >T2 ; iv Zurich, to 70S ; iv Berne to 497 ; and in Geneva to 5"52 per cent. It is a curious fact—and one that may be useful to some future Buckle— that divorced people marry more readily than celibates, the case being in the proportion nt about two of the former to ono of the hitter ; that two widows or widowers are married for one divorced person, and four for one celibate Of 1,000 celibates of the ago of .'lO, 99 marry ; of 1,000 divorced men 248 marry, and of 1,000 widows, 430 marry a second time. This is the experience of Switzerland, aud from it is drawn the conclusion that, despite the great number oi divorce eases in this country, marriage is a happier state than single Iblessedness, inasmuch up thosio who havo tried it ouee, even though they may have undergone tho unpleasant experience of a suit fur dissolution of matrimony, are anxious to try it again.