EASY DIVORCE.

Waikato Times, Volume 99, Issue 16653, 19 November 1925, Page 4

EASY DIVORCE.

INCREASE IN CASES. Prussia, according to some interesting statistics just issued, is the European country par excellence of rapid and almost secret divorce —and of very many divorces. The other day a pretty actress and an author still struggling for recognition appeared in the Divorce Court in Berlin. They bad, she said, been married for a year, but they could not possibly live together any longer. "Ah," remarked the judge, "a marriage of artists!" And the business was over, as far as the Court was concerned. There is absolutely no publicity; all the "details" are in the dossier before the judge, and they are not, made known in court. If both parties want a divorce, then the whole, legal proceedings do not take longer than three weeks. It is only on the rare occasions when ''one party strives to keep the marriage bond whole that the matter takes a week or two more to complete. Up to a few years ago, the Prussian Divorce Court judges went to considerable trouble to try to patch up marriage disputes, but that has now been abandoned. If man and wife want divorce, then, no obstacle is placed in their way to "freedom," and no judicial persuasion is brought to bear on them. In a single sitting, a divorce Court judge will generally get through as many as 30 or 40 cases. The statistics say that the number of divorces in Prussia has nearly trebled since the war, "and a comparison with England and population of which is about equal to that of Prussia—is striking:— Prussia, and Wales

No later figures arc yet available for Prussia, but it is stated that the numbers have steadily risen. In Prussia the chief reason for the divorces granted is incompatibility of temperament, and it is between the fifth and tenth year of marriage that most "menages" run on the rocks of disagreement. War manages are still being dissolved by the thousand. That in the four years 1918-21. Prussia, which has always claimed a high moral standard for itself, should have, had rather more thai four limes more divorces than England and Wales, comes as a severe shock to those interested in social work and welfare. It is not that the big cities arc the oause of it all. for, strangely enough, the number of city divorces has for years been standing at the same figure. The smaller towns show a steady increase in the number of divorces," and so do the country districts.

England 1918 8.519 2,689 1910 . .. 13,352 5.763 1920 . .. 22,534 5,181 1921 . .. 25,100 3,46.4 1922 . .. 23.711