THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1920. THE BRITISH DIVORCE LAW.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17936, 15 May 1920, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1920. THE BRITISH DIVORCE LAW.

Lord Buckmahter's Matrimonial Causes Bill, which was under discussion in the House of Lords last week, is founded upon the recommendations of the majority of the members of the Royal Commission on Divorce, whose report was issued in 1912. Lord Buckmaster unsuccessfully introduced a Divorce Bill in 1918, one of the main provisions of which was to render divorce obtainable on the ground of desertion. In moving the second reading of the present Bill he said ho would not have revived the question were it not that in the interval lie had received communications from all classes of people, in all parts of the country, pointing out the undeniable sufferings and difficulties of thoir lives, and entreating him to make one more effort to see if their lot could not bt> lightened. There is a great deal to be said in support of, the view that the time is ripe for another attack upon the rigidity of the divorce law in th<. United Kingdom which, broadly speaking, recognises adultery as the sole legal ground for a dissolution of •marriage, and even then not >as a ground for divorce on the part of the woman unless she osan in addition prove either cruelty or desertion. If the case for reform was strong in 1912 when the Royal Commission investigated it, it may reasonably be urged that it is much stronger now, since the number of marriage failures and the mass of suffering and unhappiness attendant upon them have been notoriously increased by reason of the repkless and improvident marriages which took place during the war period. Nino out of twelve members of the Divorce Commission signed the majority report, and they frankly based their recommendations upon the cumulative mass of evidence that came before them to the effect that "unless the union formed by marriages which have already ceased in fact can be dissolved in law, lives become hopelessly miserable, illegal unions are formed, immorality results, and illegitimate children are born." Lord Bnckmaster's Bill proposes to recognise several other [ grounds of divorce besides adultery, iu respect to which the measure would put both men and women on a footing of complete equality. These additional grounds include desertion for three years without the consent and against the will of either party, cruelty, habitual insanity after five years, habitual drunkenness found incurable after three years of separation and imprisonment under a commuted death sentence. If the Bill should be accepted by the House of Lords, where there is a good deal of opposition to it, as the voting upon a clause proposed by the Primate has indicated, it will probably receive sympathetic consideration in the House of Commons., If it is passed it will have the effect of bringing the British divorce law very much more into line with the law in the dominions than it is at present. Its proposals in respect to grounds for divorce Bcem, indeed, to be in some particulars rather less stringent thdn those that are provided in the New Zealand law. In the essentials, however, the principles cmbodied in the Bill are thode which are recognised in the New Zealand and Australian law. Whether the Government has declared itself in favour of these general principles of the measure has not so far been made clear, but it is to be noticed that the Lord Chancellor has been lending his support to Lord Buckmaster upon one point of importance, and has expressed the view that the Primate's proposal to forbid the remarriage of divorced persons in an Anglican church would have the serioueffect of raising the whole question of Church Establishment in England. The broad and unimpeachable ground upon which Lord Buckmaster's important proposals are brought forward is the admitted volume of human wretchedness endured without hope of redress owing to the rigid character of the divorce law in the Old Country. The strongest opposition to the Bill will be based, as experience has long shown, upon arguments of a religious and ecclesiastical character. Into this aspect of the question we need nos> enter. Where no higher plea is advanced it may be contended that modification of the divorce law must weaken the stability of marriage and lower its ideal. But whether the present conditions make for stability is an open question. And a law which operates harshly and entails suffering in no way really assists in tho maintenance of the ideal of marriage.