TREND OF DIVORCE

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 1096, 19 February 1945, Page 3

TREND OF DIVORCE

INFLUENCE OF WAR YEARS MANY MORE PETITIONS BY HUSBANDS Remarkable trends, undoubtedly due to the influence of the war years, are revealed in the latest divorce statistics for New Zealand. Seven years ago petitions brought by wives seeking dissolution of marriage with erring husbands outnumbered those brought by the opposite sex, but now husbands are dominant in demanding divorce.

Petitions for restitution of conjugal ,righ ( ts have increased greatly in recent years. There were 489 in 1944 and 302 in 1943. The first statistical recprds of these are two filed in 1918

Divorce petitions filed in the Dominion last year totalled 1992, more than twice as many as in 1934, ten years earlier, and nearly seven times' the total of 290 for 1914, thirty years ago. During the past ten years 12,595 divorce petitions have been filed. They made a sharp jump from a total of 111,7 in 1942 to 1641 in 1943, and ireached a : peak, just short of 2090, ;last year. ...Evidently,,these, statistics are still -climbingj and they would suggest that marriage in this country ■has less permanency than ever befort. An interesting commentary .is provided by the fact that whereas in 1938 some 634 wives petitioned for divorce, iand .544 .; husbands , did-likewise, in 1944 the boot was on the other foot, •with 1163 husbands petitioning and 829 wives. The change-over occurred : in 1941, when with the war Just unider way, petitions brought by husibands exceeded the total of those ibrought by wives by the first time in ithe history of New Zealand's divorce statistics.

During 1944 some 371 couples broke .•up their marriage within the .first five years, compared with 278 ,in 1943. The most dangerous .period for matriimohy, .however, appears to be when jpeorjle .have been married for from (five to 10 years. Last year 611 dissolutions were sought in such instances, compared with 431 in 1943. Another tricky appears to be in the 10 ito 15 years' span of married Jife. However, it is on record that last year divorce petitions were filed in 106 cases where the parties had :been ; married for 30 years or more. This suggests that it is not only the younger generation which is having [recourse to the divorce laws, as it represents about -5 per cent of the total jQf last year's petitions, one-third of which were filed when the parties had ibeen married for from five to 10 years. Where divorce was sought last year within the first five years of carriage, only 91 of the petitions ,were brought by wives, but 280 of ithem by husbands. Petitions on the ground of adultery ilast year .totalled 495, more than (twice as many as in 1942. Divorces sought where there had been failure to comply with conjugal rights numbered 368. This ground was cited in only 86 cases in 1942. Desertion was ithe ground claimed in 244 cases last year, and in 846 others, separation (for three years qr more.