DIVORCE AND RE-MARRIAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18736, 14 December 1922, Page 4

DIVORCE AND RE-MARRIAGE

CHURCH OR STATE. BAX OX THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. (Fuo.m Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON. October 24.' Divorce and marriage have'been subieets much discussed in recent months. The Dean of Durham, amongst others, has been pointing oul some of .the difficulties of the problem. General AV. Bramvvell Booth, of the Sal vat (oil* Army, has now proposed that, a thorough investigation should bo made by representative mien of the . Christian' Churches "During the last few years,” he writes in a letter to The Times, ‘Targe numbers of persons wlio are in no way personally; affected by the divorce laws have come to feel a deep concern for those who are, and there is a growing sympathy with both men and women whoso lives are spoiled by unfaithful partners-, and'for whom there appears to be no hope of freedom and happiness within the .Christian Church. . The; system of separation orders'has become an instrument of shameless immorality, and the havoc wrought.. by ils consequences among great numbers of children is noli the least harmful aspect of the matter. ‘•May I again urge that, having regard' to the' uncertainly of the traditional view and the ■undoubted variance in the record of our Lord’s words, il) might prove of the greatest value to the Church if , a .small body of Christian men comprising the best authorities available should be asked to make a thorough investigation of the following /questions:—(l) AVhat is the right expression of Christian principle in the actual circumstances of the day? (2) Are two views of our Lord’s teaching reasonably permissible? (5) If so, would not the Churches do well to allow for both ? (4) Ami cannot different parts of the Church, as, 0.g., in different countries, legitimately agree to vary the regulations made on the subject? •T am confident that if it should be found rightly possible to lighten the heavy burden resting on large numbers of people owing to' the attitude of the churches on this subject, one of the very really repelling influences to which Dr Lang referred would be removed. It should not be forgotten that digamy, the re-marriage of widows, involved in some passajjes of Church history a division of fooling very similar to that which agitates us to-day on the question of the re-marriage of the ‘innocent party.’ ” BISHOP'S ACTION. The action of the Bishop of Oxford in declining to admit to the Oxford Diocesan Conference the Duke of Marlborough has brought (ho Church's attitude with regard to divorces very much into prominence. The bishop declared that, although the Duke of Marlborough is, by virtue of his office of Lord Lieutenant, a. member of the diocesan conference, he cannot attend it because, in the bishop's opinion, he cannot be a communicant. This assumption is based—(hough if is not expressly so stated —on the fact that the duke remarried after being divorced. The Duke of Marlborough was divorced by in's first wife in November, 1920. on the grounds of desertion and misconduct. Evidence was given that the Duke had stayed at Clnridgo's Hotel Patis, in February, 1919, with a woman whose name was not disclosed. In the following June he was married in Paris to Miss Gladys Deacon, (ho daughter of a Boston millionaire and sister to Princess Radziwill. There was considerable difficulty over this ceremony. Several 'clergymen who were approached refused to officiate, hut at last the minister of the Scottish Presbyterian Church in Paris consented. The first Duchess,- who was Miss Consiielo Vanderbilt before her marriage to the Duke hi New York / in 1895. has also wedded a second time; her husband being Lioulenantcolonel Jacques Balsan. The Bishop of Oxford is Dr Hubert Murray Burge, a former Bishop of Southwark. THE. DUKE REPLIES. Tile duke has put the matter in the hands of his solicitors, who publish the following statement : “The Duke of Marlborough fools that he cannot pass unnoticed what lias appeared in the press regarding the public statement made, by the Bishop of Oxford that lie dees not regard the duke as possessing the full status of a communicant. "AVo are instructed by the duke to slate that ho possesses (he status of a conmiunicant with'the sanction of his parish priests, both -in Oxfordshire and in London, and with the full knowledge of the proper ecclesiastical authority. In view of the publicity which' has been given to the statement of the Bishop of Oxford, (he duke will bo obliged if you will give publicity to this letter.” NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE. “I am convinced that I had no other alternative.” declared the Bishop of Oxford in the course of an.dnlerview. ‘T thought it duo to the conference that I should make a statement upon a matter on which I have received communications from various members, and which had evidently exercised their minds. I refer to the question of the position of the Lord-Lieutenant of Oxfordshire as a member of the conference. I understood that the constitution of the conference made the Lord-Lieutenant a member ex officio, but I have always been under the impression that this is governed by the, regulation that all members of the conference are communicants. I felt unable to, recognise that the Lord-Lieutenant.was ciualified with the full status of a coinrmmicant, and had explained the matter to him last year, and desired him not to attend. I feel sure the conference will understand how painful the matter has been to me.”.j. OFFICIALS OF THE CROWN IN OPPOSITION. The ramifications of the bishop’s decision, if it is allowed to pass unchallenged, are. of course, immense. AA’hat is the position of a man who marries a divorced woman? Clearly the woman is still a wife in the ecclesiastical view, and therefore her second husband is living in sin, and is debarred from membership of the Church. Again, in the more extreme view, every remarriage of ’divorced persons, whatever the circumstances, ; s illicit—an opinion which would involve the exclusion from communion of some of the staunchest lay pillars of the Church. Has a bishop, as an official of tiie Established Church, the. right to prevent another official of the Crown doing something which the law distinctly says ho shall do? Or can a man who is lawfully married be treated as a pariah by the Church because of his marriage? Prominent ecclesiastics support the bishop in Ins action. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has also expressed an opinion. The Church had every right, ho said, like any other institution. to run itself in its own .way. “It has no right,” he continued, “to impose its fads upon me or my neighbours. It has no right •to bully the public into its viewy, and therefore it ought to give the public fair laws. As far as it orders the Duke of Marlborough about, well and good; his remedy is to leave the Church.”