MARRIAGE LAW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18295, 12 July 1921, Page 6

MARRIAGE LAW

BILL PROVIDING FREEDOM FOR THOUSANDS. DIVORCE FOR DESERTION. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 13. .England nt (lie present time is said to be the only country in the world that does not treat men and women equally. A man can divorce His married partner .solely for misconduct. A Woman can not. Lord Gorell's Bill, which recently pasted the House of Lords, and muy soon be introduced into the Commons, removes this injustice. It gives the injured wife the sumo relief as the injured husband. Thus, at one stroke, the number of divorce petitions may at first ho largely increased, if not doubled. If passed into law it will mark a new epoch in the life of the unhappily married, and may at first lead to such an increase in the number of divorces that the present crush to enter the Divorce Court will ho regarded as a mere nothing. There may bo divorces, not by the thousand, but. by the ten thousand a year. Whether or not the Bill will ho passed this season depends largely on whether the Government will grant facilities for its discussion in the Commons. Ten years ago there were about 800 divorce petitions in a year. Th 6 list for the present law term alone numbers about 2000—and there are four law terms to the year. Within the memory of practising lawyers the average for a whole year was .■♦bout 400. At the moment one of the points about divorce that is continually discussed is the position of the King’s Proctor. Every one asks: “What, is the King’s Proctor doing?” There is an impression that the King’s Proctor has been run off his legs bv the, rush of the divorce queue, ami that he is abandoning his job in despair. ’lbis is not so. ’Pen years ago it was officially staled that the largest, number of causes in which the King’s Proctor intervened in any one year, over a period of 15 years, was 35. That was in ISO 3. Last year he iutotvened in about 150 causes, or 50 more than in any previous y °''wHAT THE LAWYERS F.XPKCT. Under the new Bill either a husband or a wife who can tarove desertion lasting for three years will be «pblo to secure freedom from a marriage that has become oniy a

mockery nf marriage. This alteration may yield results that will at first, seem startling-. Whatever (he exact figures may he, and there is at, present no means of knowing them, there is no dnnlit. says one authority on the subject, that I lie number of married " persons in fart separated runs into six figures. These will not till he eligible for divorce under the new Bill. unless (hey can prove deseition. The ground of ‘■desertion” dors not mean ‘‘separation by consent.” The number nf claimant* on the around of de.-eriion may. however, run to astonishing figures, and there is an cvpie'lati<m among lawyers that, if the new Hi’l becomes law. even the coming extension of divorce jurisdiction to the assize courts may fail to cope with the new divorce i|Ueues. It has been urged that the granting of divorce should I" made a matter for enmity court? REDUCE IMMORALITY.

■■Personally.” said Mrs Seaton I iedemini, secretary of the Divorce Ear. 1 Reform Union, ”1 am in favour of extending the grounds for divorce, because I believe that it w ill reduce immorality and lead to happier married lives. There is at first likely to be an increase in the mini be* of divorces, but the widening of facilities for divorce is likely to have a discin’inary effect ou married men and women, and to lead to more amicable married life. r J he present system, which refuses divorce to many unhappy couples who have drifted apart, places a premium on immorality. Poor persona in such circumstances often find new partners without troubling about a

legal status. Seine commit bigamy. Persons who can afford divorce often find that the only way to secure it. is for one party or the other to be guilty of misconduct. One of them has either to commit misconduct or commit perjury m pretending to have done so.” SIB A, CONAN DOYLE. ‘•May I add my voice to that of Mrs Seaton Tiedotuan,’' says h>ir Arthur Oonan Do vie in a letter to the Daily Express, In expressing the hope that justice and common sense may at last triumph. ihe public is practically unanimous about it, as we tested by the vote of several groat open meetings, but a fraudulent , and fictitious public opinion is foisted upon members of Parliament to deter them from moving in the matter This is done by cert am chuich organisations, which arrange that sheaves of postcards and letters be sent to individual members, as if their constituents were protesting, when the real protest is only from small backward groups who have the advantage of- organisation. I hope mernbeis will disrSgard these tactics, and will remember that though the frogs be noisy, there are also bullock in the meadow.