ADULTERY TREATED WITH SHOCKING LEVITY

Northern Advocate, 25 June 1937, Page 5

ADULTERY TREATED WITH SHOCKING LEVITY

Primate On Bill “Amending Divorce Law [British Official Wireless.] (Received 2.30 p.m.) RUGBY, June 24. The Marriage Bill, amending'the law of divorce reached the House of Lords, and the Archbishop of Canterbury intervened in the second reading debate to state his position. Packed benches and galleries listened with interest to *the speeches. The existing law in the matter of divorce had proved tq be unsatisfactory in its operation, he said, and had given rise to grave abuses detrimental, not only to marriage itself, but to public morality. Some Valuable Remedies. The Bill contained some valuable remedies against this, and he could not honestly vote against its second reading.’ On the other hand, as a representative of the ChurcH, in his Judgment, divorce, and certainly, remarriage after divorce, were inconsistent with the principles laid down by Christ and accepted in its own law and formalities by the Church. Therefore, he could not take responsibility of promoting legislation, which, in some of its principal proposals, was inconsistent with those principles and that standard. The Archbishop said he would take no part in the division, and advised others of like mind to follow the same course. Many Abuses at Present. The Primate added that the existing law was responsible for many abuses. Adultery was being treated with shocking levity. Referring to false evidence in divorce actions, he “I am astonished that honourable men could employ devices that can only be described as constructive perjury. It is difficult not to place wilful desertion in the same category as adultery as a ground for divorce.” Th Bishop of Durham said the Bill would bring the law of England into deeper and truer harmony with the law of Christ.