DIVORCE IN FRANCE.

Evening Star, Issue 11673, 4 February 1902, Page 8

DIVORCE IN FRANCE.

Some very interesting statistics relating to divorce in Prance are to be found in the report of the proceedings of the law courts in 1898, recently presented by the Minister of Justice to the President of the Republic. In that year family jars had led to no less than 9,521 applications for divorce, and to 2.859 for separations. They emanated in about equal proportions from husbands and wives, and it is rather instructive to note that couples having children displayed more eagerness in this respect than the others. The average of the direct applications for divorce which were accepted by the tribunals amounted to upwards of 85 per cent. It is, however, noteworthy that most of the motives tssigned were incompatibility _of temper and unkind treatment, the violation of the matrimonial bond being quite au exceptional ulea. Rather odd, moreover, is it to find that a fair percentage of these applications was put in ere the parties were well out of the honeymoon. Thirty-two per cent, were submitted during the first five years of marriage. 38 during the second period of the same length, 19 per cent, during the next ten years, and 5 per cent, between twenty and thirty years of wedlock. This demonstrates that the first ten year* of matrimony are the critical period in France, they showing a percentage of 75. It is among the lower classes that arc the most, frequent, work people’ heading the list with 50 per cent. Inasmuch as during the year 1898 287,179 marriages were solemnised in this country, it will be remarked that the average of_ divorces and separations is by no means slight.