WIFE DESERTION AND DIVORCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1276, 13 August 1886, Page 1

WIFE DESERTION AND DIVORCE.

The time must come -when wife desertion and divorce and the ■ law relating to marriage shall undergo searching revision, and Judge Win deyer (the well-known New South Wales judge) has the Jcey note. He said:—

The objections raised to desertion as a ground of divorce have, it seems to me, been urged with that singular disregard to the faces of real life which always accompanies the want of that knowledge of men and things which wt sum up as knowledge of the world. The question has been argued as if husbands who deserted their wives did so with the intention of leading a life of celibacy, or as if, after having led a married life for years, they could suddenly change their habits. My experience as judge of the Divorce Court has led me, as I believe reflection will lead most men of the world, to the conclusion that when men deseit their wives they do so to consort with some other woman, and that desertion of a wife, is, in point of fact, evidence upon which the subsequent adultery of the husband may safely bo presumed. Those who object to any other ground of divorce but that of adultery may rest assured that the ground exists in every case of desera tion, though the proof is not forthcoming. Women of the humbler classes are constantly inquiring whether they can obtain a divorce on the ground of desertion, Their story is usually the same—neglect, cruelty, and finally desertion by the husband. Where he has gone or how he is living they do not know ; but as he is always a being of the ordinary male type, with no lack of animal instincts, that his life subsequent to the desertion of his wife and children is at least chequered by adultery admits of no doubt. To such inquirers, often women of evident respectability, I can, as long as the law remains as it is, but make the mocking answer:—“ My good woman, you have been legally married, either by a clergyman or, as I once chanced to witness, by a registrar, with a clerk assisting in his shirt sleeves. In that solemn ceremony you are told by the churches that God in His wisdom joined you, a young innocent girl, all gnorant of the world, to a brute in human form, and that those whom God has thus joined together in holy matrimony man may not put asunder. True it is that your husband, having done his best to degrade you to his own level, has deserted you, and left you without the means of buying bread for yourself and children ; but unless you can afford to retain a shrewd attorney, who may, with the aid of a clever detective, discover your husband, and prove the adulterous life which he is doubtless leading, you must patiently submit to this misery, and do your duty in that state of life to which God has thus been pleased to call you. It you are friendless and poor, your children must be beggars in the street, or surrendered as chila dren of the State. If the bailifls are in your house, beware of the libeitine who offers you his protection and a home ; and keep at a safe distance the upright man who, knowing your character and virtues, sympathises with you in your misery, and if you were free to marry, might offer you an honorable escape from the wretchedness of your lot. Tho state regards marriage as a civil contract j and though when married you were told that marriage was instituted for purposes which have all been absolutely defeated by tho desertion of your bus* band, and though the civil contract has been destroyed, you have no redress under the law, and practically no sympathy from the Church.”