Changing grounds for divorce

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 16

Changing grounds for divorce

Divorce in New Zealand: A Social History. By Roderick Phillips. Oxford, 1981. 154 pp. $10.95. (Reviewed by 'Stephen Erber) Time once was when one of the first arenas into which a newly admitted barrister and solicitor was cast, was that of the undefended divorce court. It was usually the first place where experience of the Supreme Court was gained. It may have been a forbidding atmosphere for the client seeking a legal rectification of marital boundaries, but his worries were nothing compared with the anxiety of his fledgling counsel. It was a solemn occasion with a distinct possibility that the inability to extract from the client, or his witness, a necessary link in the proof, could result in the ignominy of the divorce not being granted — at least not on that day. Now the solemnity of the occasion is gone and with it, arguably, a general acceptance that divorce (dissolution it is now called), like marriage, is a grave step which should not be always automatic upon a real or imagined dissatisfaction with one’s partner. It is easier, much easier, now, but Roderick Phillips demonstrates that rather than being the cause of marital disaffection, divorce is a symptom of it and the ease with which one can be obtained is really a reflection of the acceptance by politicians of prevailing social attitudes. People are now more educated and much less willing to accept or endure an unnecessarily unhappy union. Given that

marriage is still “for better or for worse” (within less wide limits today than hitherto) what this study does not do (and to be fair, it does not set out to do it) is to demonstrate what are the limits of unnecessary unhappiness which prevailing social attitudes will accept as being part of the marriage contract, and what are not. The reason, which is reflected in the present divorce law, is simply that it is not possible to categorise those things which make people sufficiently unhappy with marriage as to make them want a divorce. Everyone has a different threshold of tolerance. So now a divorce is obtainable upon proof of sufficient unhappiness with the marriage (as evidenced by two years separation), rather than by proof of a specific (enacted) category of unacceptable behaviour. Roderick Phillips has traced the history

of divorce in New Zealand from the time when a husband could divorce his wife for reasons of adultery, but when wives could obtain a divorce only when the husband was guilty of aggravated adultery or adultery coupled with cruelty sufficient to justify a separation. The picture of divorce in New Zelaand is brought up to date by Dr Phillips. It is a compelling, if solemn, study. It is replete (too replete for comfortable reading) with figures and tables. Nevertheless, even though it is not easy to read, the book certainly repays study. Roderick Phillips shows that there may be many more divorces now than there were 50 years ago, but that it is probable that then proportionately the number of seriously unhappy marriages was the same as it is now. All that has changed is public acceptance that the writing is on the wall. Public acceptance of marital unhappiness is a thing of the past.