AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 245, 16 October 1929, Page 11

AMONG OURSELVES.

A WEEKLY BUDGET.

(By CONSTANCE CLYDE.)

DIVORCE PROBLEMS,

"The tenth year of matrimony is the | most dangerous," according to an analysis in the Registrar-General's report from England. Such is a. recent cable in the 'Star." Mention is made of the prevailing belief that it is the vouug ultra-modern couple who thus break away, but this does not seem to be the case. Strangely enough, an American statistician has been making the same observation, while urging that special domestic courts be set up in-all districts, instead of, as now, only in some States, so that there may be investigation into the causes of the divorce evil. At present, he says, the idea of the applicants is to get their marriage dissolved by any plea that may be accepted, the real cause of the trouble being carefully hidden. If the applicants could be guaranteed fair treatment, they might be more willing to give genuine facts, and s*> help the world. The writer poiuts oufc also that it is misleading sometimes toj judge a State by the number of its marriage annulments, because if a judge has a reputation for 1 leniency the would-be divorcees manage so that lie may be in authority at the time required. The would-be divorcee chooses his judge as carefully as he does his lawyer. Verdicts are astonishingly varied. In one case a wife was declared guilty of "gross neglect," this indictment allowing for divorce, because she not rise before dawm to prepare her husband's breakfast; In another case the husband's petition was dismissed, although his wife had refused to prepare any meals.

UNIVERSITY WOMEN'S FEDERATION. In Geneva about two months ago was held the International Federation of University Women, in which some oIJO persons took part, countries from Australia to Iceland being represented. This Federation is not distinctly a feminist one—it deals with intellectual matters, and, of course, may include members of very old-fashioned views regarding women's place. Nevertheless, on this occasion, it dealt with some practical up-to-date matters, such for interest as unemployment among intellectual workers, both men and women, while they also discussed the creations of fellowships to help women in roseach work —one condition of ,a fellowship, being that the research work must not be undertaken in the receiver's country. It is noticed that University men do not organise in. this way, another sign that the newly emancipated sex has its own method of procedure, and will work out its own ideals in new ways, knowing that the feminine temperament must suit itself, instead of following blindly a masculine lead.

HELEN KELLER'S BIOGRAPHY. This long-afflicted woman tells us of her experiences when writing her biography, and it is consoling to other writers to know that she, too, often has to sit worrying to get the right word. For the rest, she denies that her life is monotonous. "No day is like any other day, no hour like any other hour." Her rose garden and other flower resorts give her intense pleasure, and she prosaically admits that it was the sense of smell that created interest in her first circus visit, so that for years later she wished to be one of those children who lift up the flap of the canvas, and "look in" whenever they like. On her first visit as a child she had been only three j months under tuition, so that finger reading could convey to her merely the fact that she was to "visit tall, strong animals." Her interest was so keen that she snatched the whip from her governess and whacked Charley the horse, to be told, like any other child, that if this occurred again she woiild go home. That childish stage is, of course, long past, and Helen Keller now wonders whether the world has not lost something of spiritual insight by having more sense than herself. At least she has an inner life into which very few, 6he finds, arc able to accompany her.