UNFAITHFUL WIVES.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 March 1920, Page 10

UNFAITHFUL WIVES.

SCOTLAND'S WAR RECORD. JUDGE'S OPINIONS DIFFER.

While he was disposing of divorce cases at Edinburgh Lord Sands referred to the "appalling" number of eases in which soldiers' wives had erred during the absence of their husbands. lie had before him at the moment five such cases, and he estimated that the eventual cases in the Scottish courts would reach over GOO.

His Lordship added, that he doubted whether the cases that ended in the Divorce Court were more than one-fifth of the cases of actual misconduct, for many soldiers' wives had (-scaped detection. The very conjecture tluit some ",000 Scottish wives took advantage of their husband's absence on service to commit adultery, was appalling. The saddest cases[ were not those where the wife had gone off with another man, but cases—of which he had seen an immense number—where a wife, living apparently respectable, and often with a young family, had committed the sin.

These comments from Loid Sands subsequently drew from Lord Anderson, President of the Court of Session, a qualification. "I am speaking from memory," he said, "but my recollection is that in the course of the war Scotland recruited something like 1.000,000 soldiers to the British armies. The majorty of those wore undoubtedly single young men, but I do not think it is an excessive estimate to suggest that 300,000 wives of soldiers were left in Scotland, and if the figure which was suggested by Lord Sands be applied to that larger number the result is that one Scottish wife out of every hundred lapsed. "While one keeps in view the trying times which the country experienced, and especially in that these wives experienced in consequence of their husbands —their moral support—being : , longer with them, it seems to me, in justice to the women of Scotland, that the figure which ought to be emphasised is that 99 out of every hundred, in the midst of these trials and temptations, liave kept straight. '■The position of Scotland in this matter will contrast most favorably with that of any other country which has been at war."