CURIOSITIES OF DIVORCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9120, 20 June 1908, Page 3

CURIOSITIES OF DIVORCE.

- ff i i ■ -i----ft" INTERESTING ANALYSES OF fe MARRIAGE.

I Sir John Macdonnell'a report on; ,;■ tlhe Civil Judicial Statistics of 1906 ' ( for Great Britain, is.-ued last month,' £ shows a general decrease in the liti- \ gation of ibi country, but an increase [ in the number of divorce oases. Pie, t. 'has analysed the marriages that led { . to divorce, and brings out a number [ of curfqus results. J Mpst of the divorces of ihe ten , yeamSip to 1906 (3,606 out of 8,780, or cent.) were of marriages tha't had lasted from ten to twenty years. Next most numerous. 30 per cent., were marriages of from five to •,ten years; then came marriages over stwenty years, and from two to five ;yearfl, with 12 per cent. each. Of the wives divorced 28 per cant, were under twenty-one when married. "This comparatively large percentage will be "noted. Perhaps owing to the expense, petitioners for the most part belong to the middle classes. .But while only 6 per cent, of the male population are in professional ■.employment 24 per cent, of the husbands divorced 'camo from that class. Fifteen per cent, of the Dopulation are in trade, which supplied 31 per cent, of divorces. A striking table shows that the great bulk of divorces occur in chiki-J Jess marriages : Divorces. Per ' Children. 1906. 1897-1905 cent. None 362 3,463 39 One 247 2,104 24 Two 153 1,407 16 Three to 6 140 1.616 18 ■=*TT A'Bove'six 21 17S 2 The large number of marriages at •registry offices which end in the divorce courts is noted, bit the latest detailed figures are only for 1903, when 17 per cent, of tha total marriages and 15 per cent, of those . «*fei»lved were registry unions. ,