INFLUENCE OF FILMS ON DIVORCES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22658, 8 June 1948, Page 4

INFLUENCE OF FILMS ON DIVORCES

LONDON, May 13

The cinema is an influence causing divorces, said a former magistrate, Mr. Claud Mullins, addressing the London Marriage Guidance Council. He went on:— “I am not one of those who say the cinema encourages crime, but posters are not healthy, rejirding the relations between the sexes, nor are some films. “Those providing over-sexy films ought to realise their responsibilities. Cinemas ought to realise their effect on the lives of individuals. “I have had dozens of young people before me in court who had coupled their own lives with those of film stars and had named their children, after the stars. “Divorces in Britain were 50,000 last year, compared with 10,000 before the "war- One cause is the false idea that we have a right to be happy, and unless you are happy you smash up everything and start again. It is perfect nonsense. Parents do wrong in welcoming erring wives and treating an erring husband like a prodigal son. U.S. Reforms Urged

An American Bar Association report declares that people who seek a divorce should be handled like delinquents. It denounces present divorce laws as “rotten” and points out that they require one spouse to prove the other is a sort of criminal. This results in deceit and trickery and makes a mockery of the whole divorce court proceedings. The Bar Association, which represents the entire legal profession, believes that family courts should be constituted, whose first duty would be to decide whether the parties could be brought together. They should have wide powers to decide in a human, honest way what is best for the family, as juvenile courts decide what is best for erring children. The report considers courts should discard tile theory of guilt and punishment in matters of divorce, and if it is found impossible to reconcile the parties a divorce should be granted.