DIVORCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3766, 30 May 1907, Page 2

DIVORCE.

New Zealand is getting an urn enviable notoriety for the numbers of divorce cases before the judges at every session of the Supreme Court in all parts of the colony. It is a satiric commentary on the “sacredness” of the marriage vow, the alleged fact that one man 1 is sufficient for one woman and vice versa, and that men and women are moral. There is no doubt that the majority of legal separations are arranged by the parties because of what folks call “incompatibility of temper” or ( temperament, and it suggests connivance of a kind that is not very complimentary to either the men or women who seek the divorce courts. It seems to us that there is not so much need to narrow the limits of the divorce courts, or withdraw the means for judicial separation, as there is to arrange marriages. It may be assumed that incompatible unions are brought about by mere temporary bouts of ante - nuptial insanity. This kind of insanity easily wears out. The man or woman who feels like the generally accepted love - lorn person of the novels should undergo a severe selfexamination, and if he or she is suffering from temporary insanity, he or she should be put into a place of safety until it is cured. No contract entered into by any person is so important as the manmade contract of marriage, and, unromantic as it may sound, there is no contract that ought to be approached in such a spirit of calm sanity as this particular kind of partnership. The day will arrive when the State will necessarily step in and take a hand in deciding the marriage qualifications of men and women. The whole question of divorce is merely the whole question of physical fitness and compatibility, and to pretend there is anything sacred in a contract made by man with ease, and broken with greater ease, is absurd. “Incompatibility” is curable by a change of doctor, and the hankering after another doctor is always the “incompatibility” referred to.