QUEER DIVORCES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 112, 14 May 1927, Page 20

QUEER DIVORCES

PRACTICES AS OLD AS MARRIAGE.

Divorce is a practice which is as ola as marriage itself, for ever since man and woman have been bound together by marriage vows, separations, of one Mud or another, have been common (writes G. .T. Matson in "Popular Science"). Among some early peoples ! —the Romans and Athenians, for instance—divorce was. a very simple matter indeed, and a. Roman had dnly to say that he disliked his wife and their marriage was dissolved, and he was at liberty to remarry whenever he wished. An Athenian could procure a divorce upon the slightest excuse, although it was customary to obtain a bill of divorce stating the reasons for the dissolution. This was taken to a Magistrate, and if ho approved—which he invariably did —the divorce was complete. In early Anglo-Saxon days, too, wo read that "a wife might at any timo be repudiated on proof of her being barren, deformed, silly, passionate, luxurious, rude, habitually drunk, gluttonous, very garrulous, quarrelsomo, or abusive.' But more interesting than all .these old customs are those which prevail in many lands to-day. If the wife of a Turkoman, for instance, asks leave,of her lord to go out, and he replies "go," saving nothing about coming back, she takes it that he is tired of her, and seeks another husband elsewhere. , When an Eskimo tires of his spouse, he leaves her and repairs to another igloo, where be lives by himself. After a time his neighbours realise that he has separated froir his wife, and he is then at liberty to wed again. In Cochin China a marriage is dissolved by the ready expedient of breaking chopsticks before two or three witnesses, and in China proper a jnan may get rid of his wife because she annoys him by chattoring too much. Amongst the Siamese a man is allowed to sell all his wives after he has divorced one. The first, however, may not be gold, and also en-' joys the right of being allowed to keep her first child. Any other children remain the property of the husband. When the Aleuts tired of their wives they bartered them for food and clothes, and in Siberia a man divorce* his wife ' simply by tearing, the . veil from her head. In parts of Circasaia, although a man is able to obtain a divorce fairly easily, he has to wait a year before' he ia allowed . to marry again. But what must be the most curious custom is that' common in Egypt. The law makes it quite easy for an Egyptian to secure a divorce, but forbids him to, marry, again except to- a woman who khas also been divorced. The difficulty is readily surmounted, however; by a practice in which a prominent part is played by a man.called a moostahhill. He is a creature who is blind, lame, diseased, or unfit in some other way, and is ►paid to marry the woman. After the ceremony it is quite easy for the latter to obtain a divorce, and she is then in a position to marry with a man who has also been divorced. The practice'may seem a very strange one, and the whole thing is certainly a farce; but, nevertheless, accommodations of this nature take place quite frequently. Divorce, however, is not treated as lightly as this'among all foreign peoples. In Tibet, for instance, a man is only able to procure a divorce when hia wife is anxious for him to do so, too, and after the marriage bond has been severed both ai;e forbidden to marry again. In Austria, Spain, and Greece, a divorce is a very rare occurrence, as it also was in Australia until a few years ago. How, howover, it is becoming more common. The Greenlanders and Iroquois never separated after children had been'born, and the Red Karens in Tndo-China now do not permit a divorce after "the birth of the first child.' The North' American Indian also considered the marriage tie a sacred one, arid any member who attempted to break it was banished from the tribe for life.