DIVORCED WOMEN

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 64, 9 December 1936, Page 6

DIVORCED WOMEN

Debarred From Court Presentations QUEEN VICTORIA’S RULE To women throughout the British Empire, presentation at Court is the highest order of social honour. In the Dominions, of course, only the fortunate few have the opportunity of being presented to the Sovereign personally. The importance of a presentation at Court was emphasised during the reign of Queen Victoria, when the regulations governing Court presentations were' mostly rigidly enforced. Among those debarred from the honour were divorced women. During the reigns of King Edward VII and King George, conditions did not change. Neither Queen Alexandra nor Queen Mary had any wish to permit the applications by divorced women to be accepted, whether the women came from England, New Zealand, America, or anywhere else. Cases have been recorded of American women who, concealing the fact that they were divorced, were presented in the usual way. The discovery of their divorce, however, was followed by the expurgation of their names from the Court records. Officially, they had not been presented at all. King Edward VIII has never shown the same regard for convention as did his predecessors. Not long after his accession, the name of Mrs. Ernest Simpson, a divorced woman, appeared lor tlje first time on a Court Circular. Lady Cynthia Colville, one of Queen Alary’s Ladies-in-Waiting, who is at present a guest at Government House in Wellington, explained that the regulations governing Court presentations come from the office of the Lord Chamberlain. To her knowledge, they have not been altered since Queen Victoria's day, and divorced women are still excluded.