WOMEN IN FRANCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 21 January 1931, Page 2

WOMEN IN FRANCE

RESTRICTED RIGHTS STORY OF A SPOILED DRESS Ono of the greatest mistakes which can be made about Frenchmen is to imagine that because they are vivacious they are in a hurry. The fact that a Frenchman is nearly always ready to wait his turn is shown by the queues in post offices and banks and even taxcollectors' offices. Few of them, however, have waited so long as a certain husband in a provincial town, who has just learnt that he is not to obtain the divorce from his wife for which he had been asking, for the case was started 27 years ago. During that time the couple have, presumably, been living apart. Whether they will now resume their interrupted married career is not stated, but in any case the husband will have to assume the legal rights and duties of his position, and in France there are many of both. Among the husband’s rights is that of not allowing wives in France to go to law—a real hardship in this most litigious of countries. Indeed, a divorce case is the only kind of legal action which a wife— who is said to be “sous puissance de marl’’ —can bring without lirst having obtained the written consent of her husband. Recently a woman, who was suing a careless neighbour in a restaurant for spoiling her dress by spilling coffee over it, was suddenly non-suited when her indignant declaration that her husband allowed her to go to the best dressmakers revealed that she was married and had not obtained the necessary authority to plead.