DIVORCED PEOPLE

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1929, Page 16

DIVORCED PEOPLE

WHEN THEY RE-MARRY.

“BOTH USUALLY TO BLAME.” Melbourne, Juno 22. Although no hard and fr.st rules forbidding the re-marriage of divorced persons pertain in the Church ..f England in Victoria, the Dean of Melbourne (Dean Aiekin) to-day explained that the clergy had certain definite instructions in the matter. Ho was referring to the dispute between the Bishop of London and the Rev. Gelkie Cobb, in connection with the recent re-marriage of Sir William Davidson," M.P., who had been divorced by his wife. Mr. Cobb, without consulting his Bishop, performed the ceremony at Sir William’s marriage and

blessed the new union, thus inviting a severe reprimand from Dr. Ingram. In Victoria, Dean Aicken explained, the principle is that all divorced persons, whether they have been the guilty party or have been sinned against, wishing to be remarried by a Church of England clergyman, must seek permission through the clergyman. “No case has been known where the clergyman has performed the ceremony without sanction. In many cases,, it may be assured, the bishop has withheld his consent. If such a marriage ceremony were performed ■without consent, the clergyman would be suspended. “The ideal set forth in the marriage service in the Church of England Prayer Book,” said the Dean, “is that of an indissoluble union. The words, ‘Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,’ and those other words, ‘Till death do us part,’ preclude all thought of a fresh union under the sanction of the Church. “Yet it would scarcely be human to refuse to recognise the possible hardness of an unrelently rigidity of the rule in every case. “I have often wondered whether there is really such a person as an innocent party in a divorce case. I am not speaking of the tests of la w, but of the characters of a union in the test of life in the home. “If a marriage fails to stand the test of time probably the one who offends against the law and the one who does not offend against the law will have part responsibility in the failure. “I have never yet known a failure in the marriage relationship in which the responsibility of the breakdown of the union—which should be a life-long bond of love—has been due to one only. “That, perhaps, has been the reason why invariably I have been disposed to say that anyone who has sought the law to break a union which the Church expected to be breakable only by death, should invoke the law, and not the Church, to give sanction to a new union which can only be regarded as a falling away from the ideal contract, ‘Till death do us part.’ ”