Divorce

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 49, 5 December 1907, Page 22

Divorce

In his ' Conversion of the Northern Nations ', Merivale says :—: — c If a. man denies Christianity, he will" straightway deny the spiritual claims of woman. So threaten all modern unbelief and scepticism. To the woman the denial of the Gospel would be at once a fall from the consideration she now holds- among us. She would descend again ."to be the mere plaything of man, the transient companion- of his leisure hour, to be held loosely as the chance gift of a capricious fortune '. Rousseau — and with him the French Revolution — sought to degrade woman to the position she held under paganism. His words are scarcely quotable in a journal intended for family reading. But the spirit which shuffles off Christian faith and. practice tends of itself to get Ibaok to the palgjan or ,' chattel ' view of woman and wife that was revived by the apostles of ' emancipation ' that headed the great Revolution: It finds its expression in the impaired sanctity of domestic life, the weakening of the wedding bond, and the rapid 'Spread of that rodent ulcer of our day, divorce. The current issue of the ' ISlew Zealand Official Year-Boole ' shows that, with the increased facilities for divorce provided by" ,our ' Act of 1898, the number of divorces rose from 46 in 1899 to 126 in 1905. The amending Act of this year, directed against collusion, may somewhat stem the rising "tide" of divorce. In the meantime the diversity of legislation on the subject in* the Commonwealth and the Dominion may create a" situation akin, in a mild way, to that which exists in the United ' States. A story— or parable— in the ' Chicago Tribune ' tells ' as follows how things are under the Stars and Stripes :— • ' The census-taker : " Your name, mum ? " 1 " I don't know." '" Beg , pardon, mum." ' " I've been divorced. At present my name is Mrs. Jones in this State. In'seyeral States it is Miss Smith, my maiden, name, and in three States it is Mrs. Brown, my first husband's name." ' '■* This your residence, mum ? "*• 5 '! I fiat amid sleep : here, but I h'&vea trunk in a "" neighboring \ State, where. I am getting a divorce from rrry present husband." . . ~ '."iThen you're married at present? " ■ • married in Texas/ 'New York, and Massachusetts'; 1 divorced 'in South Dakota, Missouri, -Alaska, Oklahoma, and California ; a bigamist in three other States, and a single woman in' eight others." ' - The '-Tribune's ' story is well- told.