DIVORCE MADE EASY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2781, 6 September 1924, Page 3

DIVORCE MADE EASY.

RECORD FOR LAST YEAR.

During the year 1923, 000 petitions for dissolution of marriage were tiled —a total slightly in excess of that for 1922 (043), states the annual report of the Justice Department. Abnormal increases in the number for the three years immediately preceding 1922 —vis., 075 in 1919, 748 hi 1920, and 796 in 1921; the figures for 1917 and 1918 being only 282 and 380 respectively. Of the 000 petitions tiled during the year (including 3 for nudity of marriage )_, 312 were filed by husbands and 354 by wives. No fewer than 110 of the petitions were tiled within five years of marriage, in 495 cases the marriages had lasted between five and Leu years, in 313 cases between Leu aud thirty years, and in 29 cases thirty years or over. In one case the duration was not specified.

Adultery was the ground specified iu 209 eases, including 13 cases win re it was coupled with desertion or separation. Desertion was the sole ground hi 209 cases, while drunkenness iigured, either alone or with other grounds, in 24 cases. Separation for not less than three years—a new grouncl introduced m 1920 —was responsible for 173 petitions, insanity for 5, and non compliance with an order for the restitution of conjugal rights for 41. in 519 cases the marriage bai been sob nmised ’in New Zelaand, and 86 outside. Civil, marriages, the dissolution of which was .desired, numbered 215, and represented 32 per cent, of the tbtttb