MAY BEAT A WIFE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 30 July 1927, Page 6

MAY BEAT A WIFE.

THE PARISIAN WAY. A husband is entitled to beat _ his wife if her conduct is such as to irritate him beyond control, and the wife cannot ini such circumstances plead cruelty as grounds for divorce. This principle in jurisprudence was laid down by the Paris Divorce Court in a suit in which the wife alleged that her husband had struck her. The husband’s counsel retorted that if the man had struck the woman the latter had well deserved it by her flighty conduct, and the Court incorporated into modern law the ancient code than the husband has the right, to punish his wife in case of a dereliction of duty. , . . . The case has excited keen interest among women, who are up in aims against the divorce judge’s finding. Mine. Freaud, one of the first i\ onion to be admitted to the French Bar, said: The ruling is absurd, and is not justified in law. The three causes for divorce admitted by French law are adultery, grievous insult, and assault and battery. . French courts generally take into coisidcration the social status of ihu parties in deciding ground for divorce. Words that would be regarded as “grievous insult” among relined people would not be regarded as insulting in circles where they are commonly employed 'til where not much attention is paid to them. But no article of law grants the husband the right to beat his wife, nor has the wife the right to beat her husband. though I remember one amazing case in which a delicate little 'woman exercised a veritable reign of terror over a man who was so big that it was some time before I could bring myself to believe this could possibly be true.