The Sun.
London, England, 1857-08-08 00:00:00

THE DIVORCE BILL.

(From the Times.)
The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill, as a
piece of legislation, is remarkably simple, natural,
and unpretending. It is so, if not to a fault, at
least so far as to lay it open to many attacks on
this particular score. A swarm of opponents
buzzes about on all sides, sometimes assailing the
front, as if to stop it altogether ; sometimes the
rear, as if to quicken its pace, inflicting all kinds
of invectives -and sugges' ions, as if out of patience
with its dull working character. When a clause is
read, half a dozen orators call on the Attorney-
General to make a demonstration, to envelope the
simple words with some ornamental mystery, and
give a text for controversy where, in the bill, there
is none. Tho Court must be more numerous, more
complex, more various, and, above all, itinerant,
if not übiquitous. It must do more; it must give
damages ; it must bring divorce home to the poor
man's door ; it must do what all the existing laws
have done in their perversion, and what they never
did in their prime ; at must give every man a re-
medy without even a month's delay ; it must ex-
pressly anticipate the increase of matrimonial of-
fences, and have a machinery ready fur a Pru-sian
average of suits ; it must leave no doubts as to Vie
judges who will sit, as to the places—and they must
be many—where the Court will be held. Such are
the demands hailed on the Attorney-General and
the Home Secretary, the former goaded now and
then into sarcasm, the latter offering only common
sense reduced to its most naked simplicity. Tile
advocates of divorce for the million, who now com-
plain that the bill is not " as wide a 3 a church-
door" and hardly contemplates any increase of adul-
tery, incest, cruelty, and desertion, are the men
who the other day were preaching at the top of
their voices that marriage was indissoluble, that a
divorce was a national sin, and that the existing
practice, profane, scandalous, barbarous, unchris-
tian as it is, was nevertheless better than the bill
before the house.
The result must have been rather wearisome to
the unfortunates who, after a morning sitting and
official business besides, had to sit on, as it turned
out, from six o'clock on Thursday evening till three
the next morning. Nor de we think the public
found the record of these nine hours very edifying
or amusing ; but they at least illustrate the supe-
riority of natural over theoretical legislation—that
is, of law charitably, reasonably, and most lawfully
adapted to the facts of the case, over that kind of
law which rather rejoices in putting the facts of the
case out of the queetiou altogether. In this mat-
ter of sins against the marriage law the facts of the
case appeal to the observation and the feeling of
us all. There are numerous instances in which
there is an actual divorce in feeling and in fact ; in
which the breach is utter and irremediable, and no
one in his senses could expect or even wish it re-
paired. It may not b 3 easy to lay down any
general rules, but there is seldom any difficulty in
pronouncing of this or that case whether a recon-
ciliation is to be expected or desired. In a very
low class, where the feelings have been blunted by
vicious associations and habits, or where they can
hardly be said ever to have existed, it may some-
times be the least of two evils chat a husband should
be -reconciled to a wife as bad as himself. But
above this low class the criminality of the wife is,
and ought to be, an utter bar to reconciliation. it
is not so, in point of fact, and as a general rule,
with the criminality of the husband, however he
may stand in the sight of his Maker. Yet there
are cases of excessive criminality on the part of the
husband, accompanied with intolerable cruelty or
long desertion, where the reconciliation of the
wife is hopeless, undesirable, and wrong. In these
cases the nature of the remedy will depend on
circumstances. When the injured person is of an
age or in circumstances to contract another mar-
riage, and when, consequently, a legal impedi-
ment to marriage will be a temptation to a mode
of life unsanctioned by law, then a divorce
is the proper remedy, and ought to be an accessi-
ble one. In other cases a "judicial separation"
may meet all the requirements of the case, and will
often have the higher feelings in its favour. Such
are, as well a, We can put them, the facts of the
' case. They are not met by the existing state of the
law. They are met t 3 a much greater extent by the
Bill now before us. We believe it to be adjusted
to them simply and sincerely. It must proceed in
uncertainty; it may have shortcomings; but it
provides a remedy for an actual wrong, a class of
wrongs, and no more. Its opponents, after loudly
denouncing its sacrilegious character and its
tendency to encourage crime, and after putting a
large, class of the most fearful wrongs and the most
undeserving sufferers out of the province of legisla-
tion, now turn round and insist that the remedy,
shall be more—a panacea, a general deliverance
from all matrimonial difficulties and troubles. After
treating the subject as an awful mystery, they have
broken it to pieces like a toy. But the other night
they were angels, and feared even to tread on such
ground. They now play the part of fools, and rush
in. The fox, says the fable, on his first visit to the
lion would not lift up his head ; at his second visit
he walked boldly in, and the third time was disgust-
ingly familiar. This we take to be the ordinary
result of high theoretical, or rather dogmatical
views, where Nature should be our master, and
where we have facts to deal with. The holders of
these views either fly or grovel, but they begin
with flying and end with grovelling. '
It may indeed be admitted that as the Bill le it-
self of an unsually co.mprehensive character, dealing
with several existing courts, disposing of their
jurisdictions, awarding sentences of various gravity,
and supposing venous degrees of criminality,
therefore it may be differently dealt with
by its Parliament!ry opponent's. No doubt a
judicial separation
.Ifrt not so grave an affair as- a
divorce, and there are numerous cases in which
, not only a Judge of Assize or a County Court
Judge, but a Justice of the Peace, or any official
whatever in the class of a gentleman, might be
trusted to hear and a djudicate. This might be said
of very many individual cases, notorious, simple,
eavndryilib of dodisy has,
indisputable
should and we cannot wonder that the
HouseCommons,ehaving such cases in view, as
contemplate the possibility
of courts better a'lapted to treat of them than any
court sitting in Westminster. Whether a local
court can be cteated for the purpose, or whether,
by any arrangement, a certain class of cases can be
wholly assigned to local or itinerant courts, is a
matter which we gladly leave to the c nisideration
of Lord J. Manners and Mr. Bit t. It is to be re-
inembered, however, that in a class of cases some
may be easy, other not so easy, and a very trifling
oyunty remove a cause far above the
Court Judge, or even be' ter
capacity
of
amay
men. Another difficulty is that which was ovtjected,
on the part of Government, last night,—that a pe-
tition for judicial separation, though aiming only
at such a simple remedy as protection of pets n.
and property from a violent and unprincipled hus-
band, must necessarily go into matters forming a
ground for divorce, and would thus trench on the
province of the highest tribunal. This, of course,
would be a reason for not committing such a cause
to any tribunal of very informal practice or small
esteem. It remains to be seen whether any secon-
dary class of court can be found or devised. We
will not say this is impossible, but we suspect it
will be found the simplest course to begin, at least,
with only one court--viz., that proposed by the
bitl,—disputed questions of fact being referred, of
course, to a jury when necessary.

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