DIVORCE ACT AMENDMENT BILL.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 78, 10 December 1887, Page 2

DIVORCE ACT AMENDMENT BILL.

One of the most important measures, as affecting the welfare of thousands of men, women, and children, is at present before the House in the Divorce Extension and Amendment Bill, the second reading of which has been carried by a large majority. The most important part of the measure is that giving the power to either husband or wife, after being deserted for three years, to break asunder the bond of matrimony. At the present time the law provides that a woman can marry after seven years of desertion, but Mr Samuel, the mover of the Bill, considers this period too lengthy, and the consequences attaching the second marriage so hazardous, not to say unjust, that repeal is absolutely necessary. The measure provides for a dissolution of marriage on the grounds of habitual drunkenness on the part of either husband or wife, or that the husband has been habitually cruel to the wife ; that the husband has been imprisoned for some crime, under sentence, or a commuted sentence, for a term of seven years or upwards, or has, by frequent convictions for crime habitually left his wife without support; that the respondent has been convicted of assault upon the petitioner inflicting actual bodily harm ; that the respondent is incurably insane, and has been confined in a lunatic asylum for the space or um less than three years. There can be no doubt that the law as it at present stands is unjust, almost cruel, in its interpretation. Whereas the husband can procure divorce for adultery the wife cannot, even although his in-, fidelity is plainly discernible, the law not leckoning that "cruelty.” This is only one instance of how unfair are advantages given to husbands over wives—unfortunately the reverse should have the precedence, for in ten out of every twelve cases we find it is the women who require to be protected from those who should shield them. The clauses of the Bill are such as to excite sympathy. How often do we find women who have been deserted by l heir husbands who are and have for years past been supporting themselves and families ? We know of many of such cases: where the husband is living in open adultery while ' the woman he has sworn to cherish and guard is toiling night and morning to feed and cloth the children who have been so shamefully deserted by their father. Again how often is it the case that a wife has to wear her fingers’ flesh to the bone to support, not alone herself and children, but her drunken husband ? Instances innumerable of like cases could be given, but are laid so bare to the eyes of the public in the ordinary course of every day life that it is unnecessary to do so. There is no law existing by which a woman can break such an unhappy existance, and so she toils on, having an additional weight to bear in the fact that she is irrevocably tied to a monster calling himself a man. The provision that divorce should be granted when the respondent is incurably insane should meet with approval. On the one hand there are plenty of arguments in favor of the proposed repeal, whereas the principal one against it appears to be that a man and a woman who marry do so for better and worse, taking their chance with such consideration as they have thought it necessary to give before entering into the obligation. In this argument there arises a train of thought which would take some space to go into. If there were to be no evasion of the marriage-tie there is no gurantee that society would be benefited in any fuller degree than if the proposals of Mr Samuel were given effect to. If such a doctrine were adhered to then in the face of any outrage the parties must live together till one of them dies. Moreover the principle that marriage connection may be dissolved has been acknowledged, and therefore the argument that the contract is inviolate must not be counted upon in the present circumstance. No doubt the Bill will be considerably altered, before it passes, it it does pass, and it has a good chance should it not be put off till next session.