DIVORCE LAW IN ENGLAND

Southland Times, Issue 23178, 20 April 1937, Page 7

DIVORCE LAW IN ENGLAND

Bill For Reform Obstructed

POWERFUL MINORITY IN COMMONS

(British Official Wireless) (Received April 19, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, April 18. The Marriage Bill, amending the law of divorce, which was introduced by Mr A. P. Herbert (Independent), has reached the report stage in the House of Commons. There was general expectation, in view of the support from all quarters of the House and representative opinion outside, including Church opinion, which the proposals have received, that the stage would be completed, but determined resistance by the minority, which the divisions show to number about 40, prevented it. Because of the rules of parliamentary procedure governing private members’ Bills the outlook for the Bill is now uncertain. The Daily Telegraph, condemning the use of technical parliamentary obstacles to defeat a Bill which has secured widespread support as embodying overdue reforms, says: “If obstruction is carried out in this spirit it can lay its dead hand on every measure brought forward by private members. The time has surely come when the Government must abandon its neutral attitude and give official facilities to reform.”

Mr Herbert's Marriage Bill proposes that no marriage shall be allowed to take place unless (a) three months’ notice has been given of publication of banns or of application for licence or certificate, or (b) six months’ notice of the engagement has been given by the parties to the registrar or by announcement in a daily newspaper, or (c) a special licence has been granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or (d) the Court has authorized marriage on grounds of special urgency. Divorce, under this Bill, would be granted on grounds of adultery, desertion for three years, cruelty, incurable insanity, incurable habitual drunkenness or imprisonment for a term or on a commuted death sentence: but no decree of divorce would be granted unless the marriage had been in existence for at least five years. There are provisions to enable those who cannot afford adequate professional assistance to bring their cases before selected justices in courts of summary jurisdiction where they can have the advantage of the social service of the courts, including religious, legal and medical advice. The intention is to introduce the machinery of conciliation into the law of matrimonial causes concerning divorce and nullity, but the final jurisdiction in divorce is still reserved for the High Court. Provision is made for converting a judicial separation into a divorce. One of the clauses removes the present legal compulsion on clergymen of the Church of England to remarry divorced persons or to allow the use of their churches for the remarriage of such persons. “Wicked and cruel" was how Mr Justice Swift, at the Birmingham Assizes, apostrophized the divorce laws of England on March 16. He was the latest of several High Court judges who have recently made vigorous protests against certain aspects of the divorce laws. The case was one in which a husband and wife, separated for 14 years and having made other alliances, sought discretionary divorce. “They want to be separated in law, and why not, when, in truth, they have been separated so long?” said Mr Justice Swift. “But so that this may be done they must bring their daughter to say that her mother is living with a man who is not her father, and that her father is living with a woman who is not her mother.

“The divorce laws of tais country are, to my mind, wicked and cruel. Over and over again today I have had unhappy children of divided parents here. It is dreadful.” The judge referred to the case of a woman whose marriage for 12 or 14 years had never been consummated. He asked how had God made this couple one flesh when they had never been one after a priestly ceremony.