The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-08-24
J. H. JENKINS

wife who has writgn thus pathetic ally does not. in most cases, desire her husband to return, and would be nonplussed if he did. In many cases the fault is on her side. The letters, appeal and refusal, are simply com mon form of British legal machinery, parliament having sanctioned thls method for the creation of technical desertion which, coupled with adult cry, will entitle the wife to divorce.
 The English divorce law thus dis eliminates between husband and Wife. Proof of adultery only will give a; husband a divorce. In the wife's case, however, simple adultery on the hns- bands part is only ground for 1u- diciai separation. In addition to this. a wife must in the average case, es- tablish the further offense of cruelty or of desertion for two years and up wards She often knows that her husband has committed adultery, but can establish no cruelty against him, for cruelty is difficult to prove in the English divorce court. If, however, a husband has actually deserted his wife and parted from her against her will. she can wait two years and one day and then seek divorce.
 The alternative is provided by an act
 
 rules that if wife whose husband has left her requests him by word or in a letter to return and he refuses she may at once petition for restitution Of conjugal rights. Unless a husband can show any reasonable cause for keep ing away, the court will order him to return within a given time, usually IA days The court makes no attempt to enforce this order, but if the husband disobeys it, he is on the 18th day guilty of technical desertion, and the wife can and often does, at once proceed for d1- vorce on the grounds of Statutory de- sertion." Where the husband has real ly deserted the wife, this procedure rem ders it unnecessary to wait two years and upwards. Cases, of course, do arise where a wife is genuinely anxious for her husband to return, but these are rare. The unseemly farce of the affec- tionate letter and the curt reply will remain necessary until parliament makes the grounds the same for a wife as for husband.
 It is principally the influence of the 1 Church of England which stands in the | way of divorce law reform, compels 1 these deceptions, and in numberless l cases forces the manufactur of evidence | before freedom can be obtained. A learned and experienced judge once sait 'tthat the English divorce court wa. 1 "brimful of collusion," andthis remarl | remains as true today as it was wher originally uttered. The reason is ob | vious. People make mistakes in mar
 riage and then they find themselve. up against a barrier they cannot sur mount unless one or the other is guilt! of immortality. Many persons are un l willing to indulge in the immoralit, which the law demands before it vii grant them relief, and the result Is al arrangement in which both persons ma, join, or only one be concerned. In thi
 way evidence is placed before the cour from which the necessary inference vii be drawn, whereas, as matter of fact no actual immortality has taken place How the thing is worked" is re vealed amazingly in a letter recent. written by Col. Josiah C. Wedgwood D. s. C., who belongs to the family o pottery fame, and is member of par lament for Newcastle under-Lyme, t the s'Staffordshire Sentinel" Colone Wedgwood, who did valuable worl with armored cars in Belgium, at tn
 beginning of the war, and wasywound
 ed at the Dardanelles, was divorced ol
 December 10, 1918, and the decree wa
 made absolute on June 23 last. Tn
 letter quoted earlier in this article i
 one duuToSStQ atO llii py iiiS AohAio
 wife in connection with her suit fo
 restitution of conjugal rights.
 Colonel Wedgewood explains that, il , view of the Clerical outcry'' raise lagainst him, at the time of his divorce the time has come for him to publisl
 the whole truth for the benefit of hi constituents
 My married life," he says, twas livery happy one until in 1913 my wifi ceased to love me. I kept hoping tha she would change, for after 20 years tn break always seemed inconcevable.
 offered to start again In a new countr where no one would know us.
 "It was all useless, and when I cam
 back from Africa in 1916 and failed agail I at last realized that plans had to b made to reconstruct my life and home I consulted colleague, a leading K. ( lin the House. He told me that ther were only two ways for me to get ire
 and re-estabfish a home: I could acquir a Scottish domicile and then divorc
 my wife for desertion, or I could le myself be divorced by her under Englis law. It takes, I think, three years t
 acquire the rights. and privileges of
 Scotsman, and it would have meant up
 roofing myself from Staffordshire, so
 finally chose the second alternative.
 l 'sThe law, more merciful than tn