NEW DIVORCE LAW.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLII, Issue 1808, 5 May 1921, Page 8

NEW DIVORCE LAW.

"A FRIGHTFUL MISTAKE." ! SWEEPING CONDEMNATION BY REV. DEAN MAYNE. At evensong at St John's Cathedral, Napier, on Sunday, the Very Rev. Dean Mayne made some remarks on the much-discussed amendment of the Marriage Act of last session. In introducing the matter, the preacher said that tlie law, now permitted the divorce of* married people alter three years' ol" separation, and Dean Mayne then asked, "Is it any wonder that Mr Massey went Home?" seeing that there had been so much condemnation of the decision of Parliament. Mr Wilt'ord, who suggested a certain amendment, was referred to by the sepaker as "lie's another beauty."

In proceeding - to condemn the new Act and the hurried nature of the consideration given to it, Dean Mayne said that from the Empire point of view the nation was now on the edge oil decay. History had shown, he said, that when the Roman Empire commenced to allow the sanctity of marriage laws to fall, the people as a whole commenced a retrograde movement, and it was to lie hoped that wiser counsels would prevail. Loyalty to the , Empire demanded that our marriage laws should be sanctified and stringent and there should be no easy way out of the contract, which should last "until death do us part." Referring to another aspect of the problem, the preacher said that from a religious point of view the enactment a frightful mistake and against the teaching of the Bible, which clearly laid it clown that those who were made one by God "no man should put asunder." And then the children should be considered. If such laws continued, what would become of the children? asked the speaker, who said that dur. ing the week he had read in the "Telegraph"/ that a magistrate had given permission for certain children to visit their father onco a week. Was that where the new legslation was going to - lead? . Dean Mayne said he had heard that the legislation was the outcome of a demand by certain persons in Wellingt6n who were highly placed on the social scale.