'We Live In Age Of Failing Moral Standards'

Northern Advocate, 19 October 1949, Page 5

'We Live In Age Of Failing Moral Standards'

PRINCESS ELIZABET H

LONDON, Tue. (IJ a.m.). —Princess Elizabeth said today that there could be no doubt that divorce and separation were responsible for some of the darkest evil in our society today. The Princess, who was addressing the Mothers’ Union at the Central Hall, Westminster, said:

“Even if we make allowance for the rosy hue in which the passage of years sometimes colours the past, we can hardly help admitting that we live in an age of growing self-indulgence, of hardening materialism, and of failing moral standards.”

Princess iHizabcth said that some of the very principles of which the family. and therefore the health of the nation, were founded, were in danger.

“One of the first objects of the Mothers’ Union is to uphold the sanctity of marriage,” she said. “There will, of course, always be unhappy marriages,-especially when, as in time of war and of housing shortages. it is so difficult for people to live normal married lives.

“However, when we see around us the havoc which has been wrought, above all among children, by the break-up of homes, we can have no doubt that divorce and separation are responsible for some of the darkest evil in our society today.” The Princess said she did not think any finer service could be performed than helping to maintain the Christian doctrine that the relationship of husband and wife was a permanent one, not lightly to be broken because of difficulties or quarrels. CODE OF RIGHT, WRONG. The Princess concluded: “I believe there is a great fear in our generation of being labelled as priggish. “In consequence, people are sometimes afraid to show disapproval of what they know to be wrong, and thus they end by seeming to condone what in their hearts fifty dislike. “1 am sure that it is just as wrong to err on that side as it is to be intolerant and overcritic'll. “1 hope, therefore, that you will give a lead to our contemporaries in the re-establishment of a wise and well-balanced code of right and wrong.” Three thousand six hundred young wives came from all over England and Wales to hear the Princess speak.