The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-02-10
PROTECT THE HOME.

The divorce bills will be discussed
in the House today as a special order
at eleven o'clock.
The Judiciary Committee will pre-
sent bill adding new causes for
divorce and extending the period for
which divorces can be obtained for
abandonment. But that report will
be far from a unanimous report OF
the Judiciary Committee. Many menu
bers gave notice that they would re-
serve the right to vote for substitutes
or amendments, and it is to be hoped
that, while this bill will be presented
as a majority report, it will not COM
mand the support of the majority of
the Judiciary Committee or of even
one-fourth of the House. Some of
the best men in the world have tre-
vailed on the committee to add new
causes of divorce to meet cases of
special hardship in which they are
deeply interested. These cases OF
hardship are grievous and every good
man would naturally like TO give re-
lief If it could be properly done in
each specific instance. but it is thou
sand times better that these individu-
ais should remain married. though it,
is "for worse" than that any further
letting down the bars in divorce laws
should be permitted. Therefore. no
matter how serious the individual case
Of hardship may be the supreme duty
OF the legislature is TO legislate for
the whole State and not for special
cases
Under present laws no husbands or
wives can be compelled to live to-
gether if the marriage relation is In
tolerable. The Code provides for di-
vorce from bed and board for the fol-
lowing causes:
l. If either party shall abandon his
or her family; or.
2. Shall maliciously turn the other
out of doors; or,
g. Shall by cruel or barbarous treat
ment endanger the life of the other:
or,
d. Shall offer such indignuies to the
person of the othereas to render his
or her condition intolerable and life
DufdenSOme, or,
5. Shall become an habitual drunk
ard.
Under these five causes. there can
be legal separation for every cause
that makes life a burden to wife or
husband. They cannot re-marry and
should not be allowed to do SO, but
they can get legal separation. and
therefore the hardships are not nearly
so great as are pictured.
Mr.. McNinch, of Mecklenburg. has
prepared substitute for the bill from
the Judiciary Committee. restoring the
causes for divorce to those that existed
in 1883 as set forth in the Code.
with an amendment by which
a mans infdelity may give
the woman a divorce as well rs
the woman's infidelity may entitle the
husband to a divorce. Mr. McNinch's
substitute is approved by the
following members of the Ju-
dietary Committee and perhaps
by others: Messrs. Redwine.
Ehringhaus, Ryburn Hasten. Glenn,
Lockhart. Stewart. Daniel. Jones.
Humphrey, Feimster. and, perhaps by
others who have not signed. There
are other members of the committee
vino. while opposing the lax bill Of
the committee, prefer simply to re-
enact the Code provisions. repeating
all other causes granted since 1888.
The people of North Carolina are
deeply interested in the result of to-
days action. They have expressed in
no uncertain tones their desire to end
the present lax laws that have multi
piled divorces in this good State and
if the House shall today repeal every
lax statute and return to the ways of
the fathers there will be qualification
throughout the length and breadth of
this great commonwealth.
1t is a good omen that so many law
yers are standing out against lax di-
vorce laws. The members of the legal
profession, as rule. do not get the
faircst knowledge of divorce matters.
because they are consulted only by
parties desiring divorces. and they
hear stories only of great hardship.
and they unconsciously permit individ-
ual cases to have too great weight
with them in making them oppose
stringent divorce laws. In the last
legislature the bills to end loose di-
vorce laws were defeated because
most of the lawyers opposed them.
This year. for the first time. the great
division among the lawyers in the