TRIVIAL GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE.

Evening Star, Issue 12764, 17 March 1906, Page 6

TRIVIAL GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE.

The trivial,, ridiculous causes op which American men and women ask for absolute divorce are alhiost beyond belief. The ex T tent to which' some of these causes pass muster before the court's is even more surprising. " Only a few days ago," writes a lawyer in the New York 'Daily Tribune,' " a little woman c-une to my office and demanded a divorce from her husband, to whom she had been married five years. 'What has he done, madam?' I asked. 'The horrid thing has shaved off his b;ai'd,' she returned, to my great surprise. 'He looks too young w'ithqut a beard; he has not enough dignity to'pass as'my"husband unless his •weak little chin is covered up. and hidden away behind a beard. I've told him so time and again, but he came home last night with a clean face. I told him if he ever let the barber cut his beard off I'd get a divorce, and now it is all over.'"

A woman of seventy-three years actually obtained a divorce because her husband, who was eighly-thre© years old, chewed tobacco. He pleaded eloquently with tie judge to. deny his wife's petition, saying that" he had chewed for fifty years and could not give it up. The judge told bm to dippsej and he decided to stay " by his chaw o' tpbae'er."

Many will have sympathy with a Methodist minister who cited this cause in' bis plea fpr absolute divorce:—" Every time I undertake family prayers my wife curses profanely." He got the legal relief he craved. ' "

A Chicago man recently applied for and received a divorce on the ground that "he could not stand "the ."jokes of "his wife's female friends'." He speedily won'the full sympathy of the court' by'telling some of the jokes- which had been inflicted oh" his suffering ears."' "" The inspection of a large number of divorce cases goes to show that wbiheh are most orignal in the forms of' cruelty which they inflict* on their husbands'. Listen "to some of the stories of wifely cruelty'which have recently ]jeen' detailed to the courts :" A man named Cornell secured a divorce because his up'in tlje middle of the night," plant Tierself in a rocking chair, bring her heels down with a bang at every rock, and sing it at the top of her voice for two hours at a time: Oh, won't it be joyful When we part to meet no more. Strangely enough, when he filed his case she changed her'mind and contested-the divorce bitterly. A New York painter recently appealed to the courts for relief from a cruel wife." She put paint in his hair, find dashed the pictures he was trying to paint. ""During pur whole married' life." said, another wife, "my husband Iws never to take me opt driving. This has been a source of great mental suffering and injury." She admitted that be had »ot taken' other wpmen to drive, and the; judge rejusepl the divorce. The pompkint in "anptier petition,' filed by the wife, was tnaVtlie busband "qiiote<l verses from tbe/'New? -Testar raeut about wives obeying their A wife recently demanded a divorce lie: cause her hustjand or almost never, camp H"pme r ten o'flgpk, ! "and then ha. kept" ner awake" talking nbhsenseC" 'A' husband accused'*his "w^e's"sister of theft,' arid the wife promptly made the injury to her and those of her sister "a ground for drvorce. Still another wife' for release from, marriage ties because ber husband insisbed bii filling" his house with "bis fcinfplk, whom she 'did not'like, hut had to entertain. 1 The ITtab the strange case ofßtppe Giddings, whoVaiftr having been divorced twicer on cruelty charges, brought a suit for £IO,OOO bockuse"a third suitor broke pff an engagement. She said: tbat the marl; |rejjuentiy visited her at hpr home on the county 'roasl, and that he had repeatedly asserted that he " loved her better'than hot cakes, and of them he was just terrible fond.'' She admitted that she bad led'him up to the proposal by preparing generous' supplies: of cakes.-f"' ; ' *■'*• - , -.-' r; -.-.- -7■."•'.■.'' ""'' ;■■.- , :: *' :