THE DIVORCE LAW.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 November 1922, Page 5

THE DIVORCE LAW.

NO RELEASE FROM INSANE. CURIOUS POSITION IN ENGLAND. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Nov. 5. The Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, by a majority, dismissed Mrs. Rutherford’s appeal against the annulment of the decree nisi granted her. The newspapers call attention x to the case as illustrating the need for reform of the divorce laws. It is stated there are 40,000 men and women in Britain bound to matrimonial partners who have been certified insane for five years and upwards. The Daily Telegraph, commenting editorially on the Rutherfora appeal decision, says the Rutherfords will never again live together. Morality and religion agree that they must be kept apart. Why should not the wife be free to marry again if she chooses? It is a travesty on the sanctity of wedlock to hold’ that this marriage is indissoluble. If Rutherford had been a murderer and not insane he would almost certainly have been executed, and his wife would then have been free, but because he was insane she must remain his wife. Surely the complications of law never devised a situation of grimmer irony. [Mrs. Rutherford’s husband, Colonel Rutherford, was committed to an asylum as insane after he had deliberately shot a friend. Mrs. RutHrford subsequently applied for a divorce on the ground of Colonel Rutherford’s adultery, and secured a decree nisi, whicn was annulled by the higher court on account of insufficient evidence.]