INCOMPATIB LITY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 7569, 23 May 1914, Page 7

INCOMPATIB LITY.

NO tllltUi.ND IN NEW ZEALAND. AUCKLAND, May 22. 'idle fact that incompatibility of temper is not a ground of divorce in New' Zealand was strongly emphasised in the Auckland Supreme Court to-day by his Honour Mr .Justice Cooper, in the course of the hearing of a case in which a Thames boilermaker petitioned for a divorce from his wife on the grounds of dcserti^. Thu defence was put forward that respondent was fenced to leave her husband on- the ground of his bad temper and ill-treatment. Mr K. A. Singer was contending that the. petitioner was of a vei'v dour and morose disposition, when his Honour intervened with the remark that that way not an issue to put before the biry. In America divorces were Pos-

able on the ground of incompatibility :>f temper, but in '■'few /.calami it must, be something more than that. Human 'nature was not perfect, and there wore many hundreds of manned people who Sad bad tempers ; but to allow t.hil proposition to bo put to the jury that because one or both of two parties had a bad temper.was a justification of the one leaving the other was not law. In his summing up his Honour onerved that it had been said by Mr ■linger that it Iwo parties were uuuied and one had a bad temper, it. was a justification for one leaving the olhn-, “I say emphatically it is not,” mid the judge; “the right of one maricd person to leave the other on the .round of incompatibility of docs not exist in New Zealand, h.ven f two parties ale unhappily mulched, is happens in many cases, their ■■hould be a mutual desire to gel on as veil as possible. What we justify in a woman leaving a man or vice versa is something much more than incompatibility of temper.”