VALUE OF A WIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20519, 21 March 1930, Page 15

VALUE OF A WIFE.

DIVORCE SUIT DAMAGES,

DIFFICULTY OF ASSESSMENT.

A JUDGE'S PERPLEXITY.

[from our own correspondent.] LONDON, Feb. 13. Damages totalling £2700 were awarded to the husbands in Uiree divorce cases heard this week. Mr. Justice Hill, who heard them, said that he could not imagine how a man couid want to turn into cash his wife's dishonour. In one case a Church of England minister was granted a decree msi against his wife, and the jury awarded him £2OO damages against the co-respoude/it. The suit was not defended.

Mr. Justice Hili said he always found very great difficulty in assessing in pounds, shillings and pence the loss of a wife to a, man. Ho did not know why a man should want to turn into cash his wife's dishonour. He did not know how really it could be done, and he was very thankful when the task was taken from him. "Fortunately," said His Honor to the jury, "in the great mass of cases that come before our Courts here, petitioners do not ask for damages. I find it very difficult to. understand how a clergyman, whose case might have gone through quietly as an undefended case, should want to bring it into Court and have it tried before a jury, but you must give him what the law says he is entitled to. "It has been said that the co-respondent came into some property, but a. man's means are really irrelevant, as the injury which a husband suffers is the same whether it was inflicted by a rich man or a poor man. You are not to award damages by way of punishment, but only to assess the value of tho loss of a wife's society. The law allows an injured husband to recover something in respect of his injured feelings, and I suppose you must take it into account, however strange you might think it, that any man should want to have his- injured feelings in respect of the loss of a wife turned into money." The Daily Telegraph says it considers it probable that in no long time the claim for damages in divorce will become for practical purposes obsolete. Already in the great majority of cases no claim is made; whether it is considered ignominious or whether or not the plaintiff feels that in tho conditions of modern marriage no injury could be proved. But whether this is evidence of a loftier ideal of/ marriage is not clear. ■ The Daily Chronicle, however, has a different opinion. "A wife's behaviour," says this journal, "may inflict on a husband much damage besides the loss of a mate; it may interfere with his profession, blast his cai-eer, occasion heavy losses of money. Where the co-respond-ent, who brought it all about, is a rich man, is it unreasonable that he should be forced to pay money against these money losses ?"