The San Francisco call., 1906-06-18
This Is the Opinion Of a
Foremost English
Jurist.
Movement Under Way to
Change the Existing
Statutes.
immortality Said to Be
One Result Of Laws S
Strineency.
SPECIAL DISPATCH TO The CALL.


CHICAGO, June lit is a singular
coincidence that almost simultaneously
in England and America the question of
divorce reform should have been raised
by legal pronouncements. There is
striking difference, however In Amer
ica the proposed reform takes the di-
rection of making divorces more diff
cult to obtain. In England it is pro-
posed TO make them easier of attain
ment. The chorus of approval which
has greeted the suggestions of Sir
Goren Barnes, president of the Divorce
Court, indicate that there is a general
recognition of the desirability of max
ing some changes in the present Eng
lish law which Sir Gorell stigmatizes
as full of inconsistencies, anomalies
and inequalities. amounting to almost
absurdities."
The Divorce Law Reform Association
has been formed to give effect to his
recommendations.
Sir Gorell is in. favor of abolishing
the present practice of granting per-
manent separations between husband
and wife without freedom to contract
another marriage and of substituting
divorce therefor wherever the evidence
1ustifies ii. At present permanent sep
Arations, but not divorces, are allowed
for persistent cruelty, willful neglect
to reasonably maintain a wife and her
infant children and misconduct not
combined with cruelty.
The latter proviso recalls one of the
most glaring anomalies of the English
law. While infidelity alone is held to
be sufficient ground for granting a hus-
band a divorce from an unfaithful wife.
a wife cannot obtain a severance of the
marital ties for misconduct unless the
offense be accompanied by cruelty.
Gladstone fought strenuously for a
clause to be inserted in the bill of
1857 giving a wife the same facilities
for divorce as husband, but he could
not carry It.
Sir Gorell holds that the same
grounds for dissolution of marriage
should apply to both, and that, in par
ticular, misconduct by the husband
should be sufficient ground for divorce
as IL is now in the case of a wife. That
is the law in Scotland and in nearly
every other civilized country in the
world.
Thomas Paynter Allen, secretary of
the Marriage Law Reform Association,
holds the view that the stringency of
the English divorce laws is more pro-
ductive of immortality than are the lax
American laws.
A strong ground of complaint against
the English law is the excessive cost
of attaining a divorce. 1t aTera geS lit
tie short OF $1,000. The result is that
very few of the poorer members of the
community obtain divorce, not because
they do not need or deserve the relief
that the court affords, but because they
cannot pay the high court costs. That
state of affairs operates as a direct
incentive 10 immortality
There is widespread feeling that in
sanity should be included among the
grounds for divorce. AT present a man
or woman may be tied to lunatic for
a lifetime. The Earl of Durhans wife
developed insanity soon after marriage
and has been hopeless maniac for the
last twenty-five years, but under the
English law he can obtain no relief. Il
has doomed him TO a lonely and love-
less life.