DIVORCES IN BRITAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20105, 16 November 1928, Page 17

DIVORCES IN BRITAIN.

AN ALARMING INCREASE.

TOLL OF BROKEN HOMES. EFFECT OF SECRET HEARINGS. Secret divorce, in the two years ot fts existence, has almost doubled the l toll of broken homes in Britain, says the Sunday Express. In 1926, before the, new Act, which censors tho details of

divorce proceedings, cases numbered 2973. Tho list of petitions for this year's Michaelmas sittings showed that tho total number of cases in 1928 may exceed 5400. Such a figure is unparalleled in tho history of the Divorce Court. Women petitioners outnumber tho men by approximately two to ono, and most of the cases, which are undefended, occupy only ton minutes of tho judge's time. A prominent Divorce-Court solicitor gives vivid and poignant stories of shattered romances which have passed through his hands. "Tho chief reason for this alarming increaso in matrimonial troubles is the difference the Act has made to tho consoquonces of divorco," ho says. " Before December, 1926, many thousands of unhappily married women shrank from tho publicity that the hearing of their cases would inevitably bo given. They suffered almost any form of torturo before that of revealing tho sordid story of their married life. " I have been told stories in this room which havo made mo wonder that any human creature could endure such hardships and remain sarie. And yet, the victims of these cruelties would rather havo them twenty times doubled than face a column of print. Quarrels Over Trivial Matters. " A great reason for these increased numbers is, however, something quite different. There arc many young- married women who mako no attempt to mako tho best of llioir married life. They quarrel with their husbands over some trivial matters, and, having nothing to fear, suggest a divorce. The husband may agree. They arrango it between them and once moro they aro free again. It is easy as that.

" There was a time when the wife made every effort in unhappy circumstances to divorco her husband rather than bo divorced herself. Now she does not care. She is quite ready to be, legally, the guilty party herself, content in the knowledge that* her friends need never know tho facts of the case at, all.

" Take a case in point. A young married woman en mo to mo the other day, and asked mo to obtain a divorce for her.

" ' What evidence have you against your husband V I asked her. ' Oh, T haven't any yet,' she answered, 'but I want to marry someone else. I haven't told my husband. Would you write to hirn for me and tell him what I want, and then perhaps you and he could fix the evideneo up between you ?' " My reply sent the young lady off in a temper, doubtless to another lawyer! But I have had many others, not quite so blatant perhaps, but with the same idea in (heir minds. I am convinced that many divorces are avoidable. People do not try to understand each other, or to make allowances. Over every divorce court should be written: 'This is the Inevitable Meeting Placo of Those who Cannot Give and Take.' Boy and Girl Matches. " Many of my cases are thoso of the boy and girl who married aTter, say, a seasido meeting and a few glamorous holiday weeks. They have discovered that married life is not all foxtrots and moonlight. In the crowded courts women's tears arc commonplace. It is the tearless face of the woman who will nevei bo able to cry again that excites pity—the woman from whom every illusion has been stripped. The girls cry. and you know that in a year or two years, the wound, if it has not gone, will at least he only a scar. But tho faces that haunt one are Iho faces of middleaged women who seo for tho first time the girl who in'etrivably led away their husbands from them and their children.

" The greatest sufferers never appear, or at least rarely. They are the children of couples broken ruthlessly apart, sometimes to be left without even n name, after their mother has been through tho legal machine. "It is Robot legislation, leaving liehind a trail of broken hearts and distorted lives, but in tho present state of things it is tho best wo can do."