THE DANGER YEAR

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 50, 28 February 1931, Page 14

THE DANGER YEAR

WHEN MARRIED A DECADE

DIVORCE FIGURES RISE

The Divorce , Court is again overwhelmed with work, and, with only three weeks to the end of the term, more than 400 undefended petitions and 150 defended, non-jury eases still await attention says the "Daily Mail." ; A new record in the number of people seeking divorce is likely to be established this year. The total has been increasing almost'yearly since th« war, and this year,,v may reach nearly 5000 petitions. Thirty years' ago the average was about 800 a year. Divorce also now forma a large part of the work of the Judges on assize. Three reasons, for. the increasing number of cases are assigned by divorce Court practitioners. One is the development of the procedure for poor persons, which has caused the extension of assize Court work. The second is the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1923, which granted to women the right of divorce petitions on grounds hitherto .reserved for men. This, has led to a remarkable increase in the number of petitions by women. From being in a decided minority beTore the war women ■ petitioners now outnumber the men by nearly three to one. The third cause is the law passed a few years ago which practically limits newspaper reports to the Judge's sum-ming-up and the verdict. Judges have recognised the evils attendant on undue secrecy, and this year thero has been a marked inclination on their part to counteract these evils by giving very full resumes of the evidence in their summing-up. Another feature of divorce cases which is causing considerable anxiety to the Judges is the rapid increase in the number of undefended petitions. Suspected cases of collusion, in which the husband furnishes his wife with an hotel bill for,'two as grounds for a petition, are to be examined with much greater care in the future. Statistics show that the tenth year —not the eighth year, as used to be said —i s the danger period of modern marriage, and that the Services —Army, Navy, and Air Foree —provide by far the largest number of petitions.