CAUSE OF DIVORCE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20341, 26 June 1934, Page 5

CAUSE OF DIVORCE.

Failure of Clergy to Talk • to Couples. UNCONVENTIONAL CANON. (Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON, May 24. Clergymen who failed to prepare brides and bridegrooms for marriage and parenthood were to blame for many divorces, said Canon T. W. Pym at the Moral Welfare- Conference for the Midland Dioceses at Rugby, “ Many of the causes of di\-orce are due to lack of real preparation,” he said. “Divorces I know of would never have happened if the right kind of person had had even a quarter of an hour's talk with the wife and a quarter of ap hour with the husband before they were married. | “ They would sometimes never have j been married, and much more often i they would have been able to behave I when married in a way that would i ha y e prevented that kind of gradual j falling apart which ends in the divorce J court.” ! Only married people should underI fake to give preparation for matri- ' mony, the canon declared. “If it is attempted by somebody else,” he said, “ it is liable to be done by someone who does not know what he or she is talking about. “ Brides and bridegrooms are perplexed by seeing a vicar who, as a bachelor, is unable to talk of marriage. “ I believe this matter is best done, especially in the case of women, by someone of the opposite sex. I have often found myself talking of sex rather in detail to women who would never haye gone to another woman. “ I believe there are women who would enormously help certain men.” Plain speaking was needed, but birth control did not have to be mentioned. Canon Pym’s final advice was not to ask the mother’s permission before having a chat with the bride.