HUSBANDS AND WIVES

Shannon News, 17 July 1928, Page 4

HUSBANDS AND WIVES

MENDING OF FAMILY-JARS,

SPECIAL COURT PROPOSED,

Courts of Domestic Relations, similar to those that have been working >successfully in America, are tb be established in Britain, if Mr Harry Snell’s bill is assented to Dy Parliament. Miss Margaret Bofidficld is one of the measure’s enthusiastic supporters. Like Mr Snell, she is, unmarried. She* believes, as he does,'that .domestic ; differences ought not to be thrashed Out haphazardly in a police court, the usual meeting place of the, law,-breaking drunkard, pickpocket and burglar.

The bill provides .that the new Courts shall have complete jurisdiction# over matrimonial cases, that their chairmen shall always be experienced barristers, that they shall nave tlicir own wellstafi„d probation departments, and that they shall receive all money due under maintenance and similar orders.

? ‘ Our idea, ’ ’ said,Mr .Shell, 'is that the ordinary Police, Court,- besides* being terribly congested with other work* is not the right place for these delicate domestic .matters to be investigated carefully and sympathetically. Sensitive human beings hesitate to disclose their home troubles in such a quasicriminal atmosphere. Further, if .the magistrate is busy he may have, to postpone the case for a week, and then, if no reconciliation has; been brought about, he often has almost automatically to issue an order that . practically parts the parties for ever. “During the emotion of the war there were thousands of hasty marriages. Young soldiers,, straight from school, and not knowing whether they would ever return from;.the trenches, married without any great thpught. Now they are repenting bitterly.' iWe are reaping a crop of these tragedies. Certainly it is-a fact that the. number of separation eases—before Courts that already have enough to do—are increasing- considerably. The increase is so large that one wonders whether ithe family as a social institution is \in clanger. 'Couples are more lively to try ( to straighten out their; affairs if they pan go to a special Court .specifically designed for dealing with them carefully and