The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1909-12-18
Another Cause for Divorce

In connection with the recent dis
covery that several prominent div
orce lawyers were especially satisfied
with married life we print the fol
lowing extract from an article which
appeared not long since in Bench
and Bar a lawyers trade publica-
ton" as proof that this condition
among such lawyers is not due to ig-
norance but to a startling erudition.
No astute observer of social condit-
ions can deny that there has long
been waged a silent but none the less
stubborn and relentless conflict be-
tween the arts, devices and subter-
fuges whereby woman is enabled to
counterfeit youth, symmetry and
beauty, and the more or less imper-
feet faculties of observation, precep-
tion and detection possessed by the
sterner sex. And so far as recorded
experience has gone. the advantage
has more often been with the gentle
strategist, as against the superior
brute strength but duller wit of man
History, therefore, but repeated it.
oNAA III CicAi w. val n Mlllill ltGGHN-
ly came before Mr.. Justice Scott OF
New York Supreme Court, Special
Term, Part |, on a motion for alimony
pending the trial of an action for di-
vorce. The plaintiff, declared the de-
PENDANT husband, "unwittingly trick
ed him into marrying her, who from
the first time he became acquainted
with her had deceived him" And as
part of the deceit and trickery the
deluded one averred. She represent
ed herself to be younger than the de-
ponent, whereas, as deponent has
since learned, she is many years his
senior and is a woman past fifty
years, but by the use of all the arts
known to women, makes herself to
appear many years younger than she
is 1t was also only lately, as we
recall, that Judge Davis of Cincinnati
reluctantly decided that he had no
power to grant a divorce on the
ground that the prospective bride had
concealed from her male admirer the
fact that she had a glass eye. 1T is
not necessary" said this jurist, for
a woman, during courtship, to inform
her intended husband of any device
VI thNAaAilAiiNHA W iIipiONt lil6 NOIh VI
nature in the construction of her face.
form or figure. If glass eye, pur-
posely concealed before marriage be
fraudulent representation and
ground of divorce, why are not false
teeth, false hair, or any other false
article peculiar to the fair sex also a
ground for divorce?"
Without, however, going into the
ethical. moral or legal features of
such situation, it is interesting to
consider that there was a time when
the male citizen was more carefully
guarded against feminine wiles and
postures than now, and that legisla-
tion which might well serve as the
prototype for salutary enactments to
have been placed upon the British
statute books during the reign of
Charles II. The provision was. it is
said:
That all women, of whatever age,
rank, profession or degree, whether
virgins maids or widows, that shall,
from and after the passing of this act
impose upon and betray into matri-
mony any OF mis- Majesty's male sub
iects by scents, paints. cosmetics,
Spanish wool iron stays, hoops, high
heeled shoes or bolstered hips. shall
incur the penalty of the laws now in
force against witcncraft, sorcery and
such like misdemeanors, and the
| marriage upon conviction shall stand
null and void"
Love is as blind today as it was
then, and it cannot be doubted that
in no previous age has there been
such real necessity for legislation
of the indicated character the ad-
vanced development of the arts and
sciences no enabling women to coun-
| terfeit nature so cleverly as to rem
der antenuptial detection difficult If
not impossible. To the above enum
| GRAFTON, however, we suggest the ad
dition OF artificial limbs which had
not, probably, in Charles IFS day at
tanned to such degree of perfection as
to be likely to deceive even the most
unsophisticated sutton