DIVORCE RAMPANT IN ENGLAND.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3137, 2 October 1922, Page 8

DIVORCE RAMPANT IN ENGLAND.

(Isy Evan Griffiths). We used 'to hear, hero in London, about the scandal of America's Reno. "Why," my friends used to ask, "canwot Amevuians stay married?" ' "Your American i'riends." the Duchess of Sutherland once said, must find it such a nuisance to have to yet used, in tho course of a lifetime, to so many partners —husbands for the women and wives for the men. I should think staying married longer would save mental strain. But mow England can laugh at Keno. The American passion for divorce is nothing to the fever for it which the BritTsh are developing. And they don't care to what lengths they go, cither, in order to get it. The British laws offer no divorce upon easy terms. If you wish to divorce friend wife in London, you must have "the goods on her." an American said to me the other night with sonic dismay after ho nad made a study of the situation. Well, there seems to he a plenitude of cases in which it is quite possible for ono side or tin* other, or even both sides, to "get the goods." Some of the talcs ■ which are told in divorce trials arc terrific, crushing, damning, awful and unbelievable'- yet they do not seem to terrify, to crush, to damn. tU' awe or to fail of belief. Those who arc divorced alter the most astounding evidence, has been brought against them and accepted ley the court seem to have not the slightest difficulty in getting new partners the worse the evidence, apparently, the easier to get the partners. .More than 1.'500 divorce cases are scheduled in the London courts. In huudredis of cases; the defendants do not even take the trouble to refute the charges which arc brought against them, the general impression inevitable to the onlooker being that this is not because perhaps they might not do so. hut merely because they tin not care. An interpretation of tl)i« might bo that the mental situation here is that material infidelity in an amazing number of minds has come to lie regarded i\f a matter of such slight importance that a charge of violation id' it is not serious enough to be worth the bother of lighting. Along tliijs line id' argument comes the fact that, mere defeat in a divorce :'i|so. with all manner ol' passionate indiscretionsl proved against one. no longer seems to have a paramount, effect, or any very serious effect whatever upon the social popularity and standing of oven a woina.n. Of course it long has been the situation that such matters would not seriously harm a man's standing in society.