DIVORCE REFORM

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 140, 30 June 1937, Page 12

DIVORCE REFORM

Second Reading of Bill in Upper House LONDON, June 28. Mr A. P. Herbert's Divorce Beform Bill pa-ssed the second reading of the House of Lords without a division. The most striking speech was that of Lord Dawson of Penn, the eminent surgeon, who said thafc it must not be thought that an increase in divorce lneant a. correspcmding increase in marriage failures, Women in the past had not more freedom in eex than under the law, but in the years succeeding the war women had freedom of coinpanionship hitherto unknown, and with freedom of equality came an increase in sex-consciousness. He regretted the omission of inveterate alcoholism and drugi-taking as grounds for divorce. It is only members of our profession who have known the desperate state of iear in the home in which one of the partners is a victim, who appreciate this", he said. The Bishop of Birmingham. supported the Bill because it seemed to be in accordance with the spirit of Christ. The chief features of the measure. which has been approved. by representative churchmen. are extension of the grounds for divorce from adultery to inelude desertion for three years, and a provision that there shall be no divorce within five years of a marriage. Mr Herbert, who is senior burgess for Oxford University, is the well-known novelist and j'ournalist. He sought election to Parliament for the explicit purpose of championing reforms in the divorce laws, which he claimed to be overdue, through unwillingness of parties and Govemments to take up his proposals, which were liable to ofi'end a strong minority feeling, ah though they commanded widespread but uriorganised suppoi-t.