MORE DIVORCES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 93, 19 April 1940, Page 9

MORE DIVORCES.

CAUSES DISCLOSED.

OVER 1000 IN ONE YEAR. MANY CHILDLESS MARRIAGES. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent ) WELLINGTON, this day. From the returns relating to divorce now available for tlie first time in respect to the year 1038, it is shown that the rate continues to rise. Ten years ago the number of divorcee for every 10,000 of population was 4.12, but this proportion is now C.53. For the first time the official records of decrees absolute in a year have passed the thousand-mark, the total being 1050 compared with 017 in the previous year. The divorce rate demonstrates that for every hundred marriages in a year, there will be nearly eeven divorcee.

Of the causes of divorce where decrees were made, separation under agreement for more than three years heads the list with 572 (184 husbands' petitions nnd 388 from wives). Wilful desertion wae responsible for 203 cases (husbands' petitions 86, wives 117); adultery 157 (husbands petitions 91, wives 60); and non-compliance with order for restitution of conjugal rights 96 (husbands' petitions 71, wives HZ).

Childle.se marriages constitute the largcrit proportion of those dissolved, 161 being recorded in respect to husbands' petitions, and 191 where action was taken by the wife. The statistic* show the duration of all these dissolved marriages. It ia in the fourth year that difficulties appear on a definite scale, and marital trouble, judging by divorce decrees, is at its worst point 'between the fifth and the tenth years of marriage, the total number of petitions in this group being 122 from men and 167 from women. The number of children affected by the 1050 decrees absolute in 1938 was 1706.