OUR DIVORCE LAWS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 279, 21 August 1919, Page 6

OUR DIVORCE LAWS

Sir,—When are those whose duty it is to make or amend the laws of this country going to turn their attention to those Acts which deal with the question of divorce? I mnke no excuse for asking this question, as the ever-increasing number of such cases, as shown in our papers, proves conclusively that sooner or later legislation will have to be brought down to remedy a state of affairs that is rapidly threatening to assume the asuect of a national danger. Woman has obtained the franchise, carrying with it an acknowledgement of equality. The question that is evidently beginning to agitate her mind is howfar this affects her position with reference to the condition of marriage. Is she still to be looked upon as a remedy against sin (see prayer book), and has her husband still the right to wander off and sample other remedies whenever he feels so inclined? It is true she can tako advantage of the law, but as at present constituted it is practically useless. She may have suspicions so strong ro her husband's unfaithfulness as almost to amount to certainty, but unless she has sufficient money to employ a detective to verify them, what hopo has she of proving her case and obtaining a verdict? Moreover, she knows full well that her husband can obtain the services of a professional "gentleman" who will not hesitate to bombard her with questions of such a nature that would cause the average woman to wilt with shame. Finally, her own lawyer will probably tell her that the most she can hope for will be about a third of husband' 6 income. It practically means that unless she can secure outside sympathy and help she gives in, and virtually lives n life of shame. Robert L.. Stevenson never penned truer words than the following: "But some of the ugliest adulteries are committed in tho bed of marriage, and under the sanction of religion and law."

Why is the Church so opposed to divorce? Is it because she fears a diminution of her power in favour of a ceremony, or contract of ft purely civil anture ? ''Everyone must realiso what a hell. a homo becomes when married people fail to live happily together. Father, mother, and children drag out a miserable existence, while Statu and Church sit quietly by and say it is wrong to Rive these people the chance to right their lives. Before we will allow them to do this they must either commit adultery or at least desert the homo for five years.

Take the case of two who enter into a business partnership. They lwve both had urorious experience, and know approximately what they may expect each from the other. The whole thing is carefully outlined in a legal document, and provision is made for dissolution iu •itch a manner that the safeguarding of the interests of both contracting parties is assured. In the case of marriage, in the majority of cases the converse holds good—neither has had any actual experience of married life, and both are probably sufficiently in love to have their reasoning faculties thoroughly obscured. 'L'hev do not realise that love is a little trick on the part of nature to insure tho continuance of tho race. A contract of the most binding and exacting nature is blindly signed, oue that will inevitablv exert u tremendous force either for good or evil on their livos, and should they have children, on theirs also. In a lmirriugo that is unhappy tho lot of the children is very hard.

Times have' changed, our legislators should, give their earnest attention to this most important question. Denmark has approached it in'a fair and broadminded manner. Can we not do likowise and so make it possiblo Tot a woman or a mint to break off relations that havo become unhappy, and to do so without having to face tho present indeconcies of tho Divorce Court, and tho coarseness of a certain typo of newspaper? Tho adjustment of tho law in this respect would unquestionably lead to a crop of divorce cases, but, with tho altered conditions more respect would be aiven to tho marriage contract, and in a short space automatic adjustment would follow. —t am, etc., HIXIO.