The Divorce Mill

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 241, 31 December 1927, Page 20

The Divorce Mill

VtRmRUST 1 HE fear of public scandal having been removed by the law forbidding I urt I newspapers to publish 'jSsfewriSHN anything but the bare VSygsfttAS’n* record of tile cases, England is witnessing a rush to the divorce courts, which, it seems, was entirely unexpected by the proponents of the new law, and which is causing concern to all (says a, writer in the “Literary Digest”). The purpose of the anti-publicity law was to clean the Press of unsavoury details. It has achieved that end, but it has, at the same time—as some of-* the Press warned —multiplied those seeking to untie the nuptial knot, but who were previously deterred by the fear of publicity. More than 500 divorce petitions were listed in London for the Michaelmas term. When the year closes more than 2,400 divorce suits will have been decided in London alone, and cases heard by Assize Judges will bring the total of 3,500. This means, we are told, that including co-respondents, 10,500 persons will be concerned in this break-up of homes. The remarkable increase of divorce is shown by the following table, taken from the “Daily Express,” of the average yearly number of cases over five-year periods since the beginning of the present century:— 1901-1905 563 1906-1910 624 1911-1915 656 1916-1920 1510 1921-1925 2734 Eminent lawyers, we read further, attribute a large proportion of this year’s increase to the prohibition of newspaper reports of anything beyond the bare skeleton of hearings. Another contributing factor mentioned in the London Press is the equalisation of the sexes, that is, giving women the same rights as men in suing for divorce. In a population of 40,000,000, the “Daily Express” points out, the number of divorce petitions now in the courts does not sound very large, but its does represent a great increase over what had come to be regarded as normal, and it deserves examination. Above all, it is a question that con-

cerns the home. Is it or is it not a good thing for the country and for the moral standards and the happiness of its citizens, first, that there should be these increased facilities for divorce, and, second, that they should be turned to such eager account? A questioning attitude toward the problem is taken in the editorial columns of the “Westminster Gazette” by a writer who signs himself “J.A.S." Whether the increase in the applications for divorce is good or bad, he says, will be answered differently, according to the view which different people take of the institution of marriage. “To those who think that marriage is a private contract between the parties, which should be wound up when it is broken down or become intolerable to one or the other, it is right and proper that facilities should be provided for dissolving it without publicity or scandal. To those who think it a contract ‘in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation,’ it must be painful that the law should offer a comfortable means of escape from it without the intervention of the ‘congregation.’ ” It can scarcely be doubted, says the London “Evening Standard,” that when the withdrawal of publicity is fully appreciated there will be a still larger crop of divorce cases. That may not be a bad thing, it is conceded. “To attempt to perpetuate marriages which are no marriages is against public policy and private happiness.”

“But it was certainly not the thing desired by the opponents of divorce publicity who were also the opponents of divorce reform. It is a curious but highly typical instance of the modern tendency to muddled thought, springing from the desire to combine incompatible advantages, or, as the old phrase has it, to eat one’s cake and have it.

“The opponents of reform desired to maintain the kind of deterrent which acts most unfairly on honest and decent people. But, in their dislike of publicity, they helped to abolish the one kind of deterrent most likely to be effectual with people whose motives and actions will not bear examination.”