The Land of Easy Divorce

Southland Times, Issue 19799, 19 April 1906, Page 3

The Land of Easy Divorce

| lii discussing matrimonial tyranny la America, it was mentioned that ttn wife, when reproached, had the deadly weapon of tears. She has, however, the still deadlier weapon of divorce, which she uses in many eases on the most ridiculous pretexts. In fact, it is doubtful which is the more surprising, the pretexts or the extent to which they pass muster in the courts. A New York lawyer stall'd recently that a woman came to him and demanded a divorce from her husband on the ground that the “ horrid thing ” hud shaved oft his beard. "Ho looks tco young without a beard ; he has not enough dignity to Pass ns my husband unless his weak little chin is covered up, and hidden away behind a beard. I’ve told diim so time and again, but he came homo Inst night with a clean face. I told him if lie ever let the barber cut it oft I’d get a divorce,and now it is all over." A woman of seventy-three obtaiuid a divorce from her husband, who was eighty-three clewed tobacco, which ho

had been doing for lifty years. The hustiand was told by the judge to decide between his wife ami his tobacco. and lie decided to stay “by his chaw o' tine’er." Another woman applied for divorce, but unsuccessfully, on the ground

! that her husband had never once offered to take her out driving, which was “a j source of great mental suffering cud in- ! jury." while a complaint in' another case I was that the luisbatfd " plot,al verses from the New Testament about wives I obeying their husbands." But petitions of this extraordinary kind are not always tiled liy Women. A Chicago man recently got a divorce because lie could not stand the jokes of his wife’s women friends, the sympathy of the Court, going out to him when lie related sirao of tile " chestnuts " which made his '• ift* a misery. It is said that, divorce cases go to sliow that women are the more original i'l the forms of cruelty they inflict. For jr.nhince, a man .secured a divorce because liis wife would get up in the middle of the night, plant herself in a rockingchair. bring Her heels down with a Vang i.t every rock, and sing at the top of her voice for two hours at a time ;

() h. won’t it ho Joyful When wo part to meet no more

Hut with feminin*' inconsistency *he torlurer clur.'ired her mind when the case came l»ofore the court, and Contested it hit terly.—Kxchange.