The Washington herald., 1920-12-05
DIVORCE CRISIS
SEEN IN BRITAIN
Nearly 5000 Gases Down
For Hearing IN London
| Courts Before Xmas.


5000 divorce petitions which are
down for hearing in London courts
before Christmas. and Of which over
so per cent are undefended. has sud
denly stirred Englishmen to a re-
alization that a sacred Institution.
one of the boasted rocks of Anglo
Saxonism, Is being seriously men
aced. 1t Is plain that this condi-
ton is another of the postwar re-
actions that have wrought such
havoc in this country. But turists
who have examined the reasons for
the present crowded divoce court
have found %till another cause. 1t
Is that divorce, heretofore the mo-
nopoly of the rich, has come within
the reach of the poor in England.
Shortly /before the war special
legislation was devised to enable
the less affluent to apply to the
courts for release from married
misery. The process of obtaining
this release was even further facili-
tated by a provision that IL a man
or woman did not possess more than
$3.50, or, in exceptional cases. $500.
a lawyer was provided at a small
cost. All court fees were remitted
and in many cases junior lawyers
gave of their eioquence and learn
ing for nothing. The interval Of
the war temporarily halted the op-
GRAFTON of these provisions.
signal for Matrimonial Hosttlities.
The advent of political peace was
a signal for the opening of matri-
monial hostilities. Yet 1t is real
ly nothing more than the poor man
and woman asserting their rights
to the same privilege enjoyed here
tofore by the financially capable
and royalty eligible. 1t only means
that the sad stories OF years and
years past. which for long were sti-
fed by poverty. are now suddenly
all clamoring for sympathy togeth-
er. And what is more, the law is
about to step in and intervene on
behalf of these poor domestic in
surgents by decreeing permanent
legislation to replace the old ano
obsolete marriage laws of England
The bill is unique among legis-
lative measures in the British Par
Lament and is attracting more at
tention among the mass of the pub
lie than is even the Irish bill. This
| is not hard to understand when one
4 COHeiutES NHc OI SUCH
an enactment on the present and
! future social structure of England
A royal divorce commission has
| worked on this bill for more than
three years and has decided that
the existing marriage laws of the
British kingdom are antiquated and
! that their perpetuation meant the
, continuance of the anomalies and
injustices of a system devised be-
! fore the time of the reformation.
Faf-Reaching Changes in Present
| Law.
The effect of the divorce bill Z.
expected to be prodigious. Judge.
| in circuit courts and inferior tri-
bunals will be qualified to hear di.
vorce cases. and an inhanItant in q
| remote part of the United King.
dom seeking separation will nc
longer have to come to London. the
Reno of Great Britain. When thi,
| bill becomes law there will nC
longer be any burden upon the wifi,
1 to prove cruelty or desertion in ad.
dition to infidelity. Man and WON,
an will receive equal treatment, anC
either husband or wife will be abl,
to obtain a divorce-not merely
"the living death" of judicial sep
aration-but an out-and-out divorc,
enabling them TO remarry. on proc
of any one OF the following condi
tions:
| (a) Infidelity.
| (b) Three years desertion.
I (c) Cruelty.
l (d) IncurabIe insanity for hv
years.
(e) Incurable habitual drunken
ness.
The bill become law will also pu
an end to the present tragi-comed,
of perjury and collusion that sur
rounds a petition for restitution O
conjugal rights. The notoriou
trial of Mrs. Bamberger last sum
mer is case in point. The wifi
today who is unable or unwillin
to prove cruelty is compelled to fal
back on desertion for two years an
upward. The solemn farce of tn
court. realizing that two years is
long time to wait. asking a woma
to support her petition that he neg
lected to answer or wrote refusin
to have anything to do with he
is exaggerated into a slapstick com
edy when the letter. usually cor
cocted, is solemnly read in cour
and the judge solemnly orders tn
husband to return to his wife /
fourteen days. The husband disc
beys, and the law holds that sue
disobedience for fourteen days
equivalent to desertion for tw
. years and upward. So the woma
! has proved desertion. All that re
. mains is to prove infidelity and sh
is free again.
1t is the abolition of such FOOLS
anachronisms and the liberation {
the poor man from the terribI
! agony of unhappy marriage this
the English divorce bill aims to &C
complish.