Divorce-Rule Experiment By Mothers’ Union

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31760, 17 August 1968, Page 14

Divorce-Rule Experiment By Mothers’ Union

New Zealand and Canada have been granted a threeyear period by a world conference of the Mothers’ Union in which to experiment with a revision of the rules governing admission to membership of mothers who have been divorced. A recent issue of “Church and People” says that advice of this decision has been received by officials of the union from Mrs T. Holland, New Zealand president, and wife of the Bishop of Waikato, who led a delegation from this country to the conference in London. The conference rejected a request to admit divorced women. The New Zealand council had decided to press for revision of membership rules to provide for admission of certain divorced women-

The newspaper says that at the conference there was a great deal of discussion on whether a membership which Included women with more than one living husband could effectively witness to the binding nature of the marriage vows“There was a common desire to minister to the needs of divorced women;” the paper says. “But a resolution for a change in membership rules was defeated by a more than two-thirds majority.” An official statement from

the Mothers' Union in London said that to help New Zealand and Canada—which had earlier removed membership qualifications the conference approved a resolution that the next three years should be regarded as a period of experiment during which methods of association could be decided on.

It is reported that a commission, under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Willesden (the Rt Rev. G. Leonard) would also be set up. This will consider the future of the Mothers’ Union, how to maintain its witness, extend its work and strengthen family life It will comprise union members, clergymen and a lawyer.' “The whole business has been immensely complicated by the Church's own double standard on this issue,” says “Church and People" In an editorial. “While it has been refusing to remarry divorced persons on the ground that divorce is a theological impossibility, it has accepted that divorce is a legal reality, and has not suggested that remarried divorcees are bigamists. “Moreover, remarried divorced persons have been admitted to Holy Communion, a situation that would be quite unacceptable if they were considered to be still married to their first spouse and living sinfully with their second supposed spouse. “The next step, it seems, will be the remarriage of divorced people in church. If this should come about, the last possible barrier against the admission of divorced women to the Mothers’ Union would be removed.”