Divorce

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1, 4 January 1906, Page 19

Divorce

An American Judge (Judge Gaynor) in a recent charge to a jury (recorded in the New York ' Freeman ' of November 18) ' said things ' that may give pause to some of the- -misfit or evil-tempered couples that swarm lin such hordes into the divorce mills. Said he :—

' I charge you, gontlemen, that so far as concerns any religious or sacramental or Church bond existing between these people we have nothing whatever to do with it. If these people are bound by any sacrament or any religious or Church bond you and I are not seekfng to sever that obligation. When we are through with this case that obligation is left untouched. We do nothing whatever to it. If there is a bond of matrimony between these people which, according to Church law,- cannot be severed until death severs it, we leave that bond scrupulously alone. ' They are just as much bound by it after we get through with them as they were before. We do not sever it, we do not break it, and that is something that U seems to me is very generally misunderstood.'

The speaker (says the New York ' Freeman ') added that even great prelates who are supposed to know something about marriage and divorce often lead people to understand that they think' that the law can dissolve the sacramental or Church tie of marriage. eWe never do,' says J.ustice Gaynor, •We do not interfere with it l -at all. If such a: 'Bond exists, we leave' it alone. Church and State in this country are absolute- , ly separated. Whatever Church obligations "exist .the -civil leaves severely alone.' Our New York con^ temporary approves of this interpretation of the civil

law. It says that ' according to it r the • effect of a civil divorce is equivalent "to a declaration of the court -that the divorced man arid ■ woman , are immune from civil punishment, from prosecution for^bigamy, in , : case either should consort with another man. or woman, and that this consorting will be .recognized by the State as a marriage valid enough for all legal pur-" poses.'