DIVORCE IN PERSIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 224, 10 December 1927, Page 10

DIVORCE IN PERSIA

; STRANGE CASE HEARD n ; WHERE WIVES ARE POSSESSIONS r A strange divorce case, more strange ! because it takes place in a country e j where there really is no such thing as *• j divorce as the Westerner knows it—c j woman being but a possession—has . i been brought before the ecclesiastic courts of justice at Teheran, the capital s I of Persia. r Ordinarily no court would hear the v ! divorce appeal of a wife, whose social l standing is slightly above that of a __ | slave, and no husband would go to s I the trouble of calling on a court to 1 ! sever his martial bands. since it is d ; only necessary for him to call in the L . nearest priest, have him annul the j marriage, and make the settlement ' ! called for in the marriage deed. \. hen - j he tires of his woman. ? However, in this case, the woman is l the appellant and she is being heard. She vindicates her right to a divorce * claim on the ground that her marriage : to her husband was illegal and contrary : to an old law still operative. She is , trying to prove that her husband is her brother because they both were for four months cared for and sustained by : the husband's mother. According to : the Persian law children of different : parents become consanguineous when they are nursed by the mother of either. ■ j The defendant's counsel bases his i ! principal argument on the allegation j that the period when the babes were ; ! fed by the husband’s mother was below | the fixed time of four months. J The case is a difficult one and may

go on for months or years. The womai has left her husband, but cannot mam her new love before the husband i's obliged, by ecclesiastic law. to grani