DIVORCE DAMAGES

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19889, 28 March 1930, Page 5

DIVORCE DAMAGES

ASSESSING A WIFE'S VALUE.

JUDGE'S COMMENTS

(r&OK OTO OWH COBBESPOKDENT.)

LONDON, February 13,

Damages totalling £2700 were > awarded to' the husbands in three divorce cases heard one' day this week." Mr Justice Hill, who heard them, said that he could not jpiagine how a man could wjint tq turn into cash his wife's dishonour.

In one case the Rev. Lancelot George Reed, ' formerly Minor Canon of St. George's, Windsor, and now chaplain to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in the Persian Gulf, was granted a decree nisi against his. wife, Mrs Phyllis Evelyn Howard Reed.

. The jury awarded him £2OO damages against Mr Donald Morrison,, formerly sub-manager of general stores at Iquique, Chile, who was cited as co-respond-ent. Mr Reed was given the custody of the child of the marriage, a daughter, aged 11. The suit was not defended. , .

Difficulty of Assessing. Mr Justice Hill said he always found very great . difficulty in assessing in pounds, shillings, and pence the loss of a wife to a man. He did not know why a man should want to turn into cash his wife '3 dishonour. He did not know how really it could be done, and he was very thankful when the task was taken from him.

"Fortunately," continued Mr Justice Hill, "in the great mass of case 3 that come before our Courts here, petitioners do not aßk for damages. I find it very difficult to understand how. a clergyman,, whose case might have gone through quietly as an undefended case, should want to bring it into Court and have it tried before a, jury, but you (the jury) must give him what the law says he is entitled to.

"It has been said that the co-respond-ent came into some property, but a man 'a means, are really irrelevant, .as the injury which a husband suffers is the same Whether it was inflicted by a rich man or a poor man.' Y,ou are not to award damages by way of punishment, but only to. assess the • value of the loss of a wife's-society. -; The law: allows an injured husband to recover something in 'respect of his injured feelings, and I suppose you-must;take it into account, however strange you might think it that any man .should want to have his injured* feelings-in respect of the;; loss of a, wife turned into money." , r

Press Comment.'• The "Daily Telegraph" considers:it probable that in no' lOng time the claim for damages in'divorce will'become for, practical' purposes obsolete. Already in the great majority of cases no claim is made, either it is considered ignominious or the plaintiff feels that in the conditions of mod.ern marriage no injury could be. proved. But whether this is evidence of a loftier ideal of marriage is not clear. The "Daily Chronicle," however, has a different opinion. "A wife's misconduct," says this journal, "may inflict on a husband much damage besidesthe loss of a mate; it may interfere with his profession, blast his career, occasion heavy losses of money. Where the co-respondent, who brought it all about, is a rich man, is it unreasonable that he should be forced to pay money against these money losses?'