July 26, Mr. A. P. Herbert undoubtedly deserves the tributes paid to his} crusading zeal, tactical ability and profound study of his subject on the enactment of the Matrimonial Causes Bill which receives the}
Royal Assent this week. Those qualities, however, would have} been of no avail had not the need for reform of the law relating to} divorce been firmly impressed on] the public mind. The difficulties usually experienced by a private] member in getting legislation passed are well-known. Many examples can be quoted of reforms} which have had to meet with disappointment session after session) because the private sponsorship given to them could not secure Government assistance to overcome} the difficulties of Parliamentary congestion. The Government's decision to adopt Mr, Herbert's Bill was] the determining factor in ensuring] its passage and was obviously inspired by the strength of evidence that the-measure commanded widespread approval. Perhaps. its de.
tion of the need for compromise, have contributed to this result Although based largely on the Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce, the new law does not en. tirely remove inconsistencies or in. justices. Its chlef'merit fs that does go a long way.to mitigate the scandal which, during the last twelve years, has received frequent and caustic criticism from -succes. sive Judges of the Divorce-Court, 'The-change which' was made in 1925 "to meet' the "demand foe equality of the sexes in divorce, by making a single act of adultery a cause for action for the. woman as, valid as for the man, had an unexpected result,..'There was immediate. rise in the number of Givorce cases. At.frst this was attributed to a concurrent' reform which had severely restricted publi. city. in. the reporting. of divorce cases. It soon was found to derive from quite another cause. Unhappily married couples found that, so long as the husband was' ready to give evidence of the misconduct which enabled the: wife to° obtain a Aivorce, they could easily. solve their, problem without the inconvenience and social disability previously obtaining, In itself this may' or may. not have been beneficial, but it actually Jed to. what is ".cuphemistically called' synthetic divorce and, incidentally, eliminated for all practical. purposes the so-called distinction between the "guilty" and "innocent" parties. Indeed,: where the wife was a plaintiff-to'an undefended action it became customary {to assume that the husband's alleged misconduct was a pretext to cover causes of disagreement of " which the Divorce Court could; take no effective cognizance, Frequently the cease was due to the husband's mistaken sense of chivalry in. giving his wife a release which she desired on the ground that the stigma attaching to a man was less serious—and in practice, more easily and economically proved—than if the woman' were cited as defendant, especially as, in the event of the wife having to be convicted of misconduct, she was always in danger of being "let down" by the third parly tothe case, if such there were. So, paradoxically enough, the equalization of the sexes in ivoree became an instrument for creating another "inequality, this {ime to the detriment of the man, Moreover, adultery to which neither parly might nominally have never given a thought was deliberately used to secure-relict from real disabilities of another kind—temperamental differences, economic catastrophe, or other ' breaches which would have been sufficient to give grounds for avoidance of ordinary civil contracts but could not be 0 cited to terminate marriage, The new law does. not, entirely remove this grave source of scandal, Tt goes far to reduce it to reasonable proportions and it enables the Courts to be more searching in the detection of collusion than they have been able to be in stemming the tide of "hotel bill" divorces. The Bill has managed to secure the virtual neutrality of ecclesiastical opinion because of the compromises which it has included—notably the clause barring "a sult for divorce, except in special circumstances, until three years have elapsed sinza the marriage. Into the controversy of the Church's position it hot necessary to enter. Yet it must be recognized that the further evidence of the cleavage of view between the Church and the Legisature on this subject gives rise to the belief that, sooner or later, the anomaly. will' have to be faced. Whether the Church is right of wrong in holding itself free 10 ignore Parliamentary wishes, when it enjoys the status of an Established Church subject to Parlia mentary control and possessed of special. privileges: for influencing Parliamentary action must be toft the individual to decide. It is significant, however. that, "during the debate in the House of Lords on the Bill, humanitarian, practiea! and moral' arguments found more vivid expression in the speeches of distinguished lawyers "and judees supporting the Bil than' in tie contributions, from Bishops who with the "exceptions. of the Bishops of Durham' and Birmingham—seemed to confine them selves to dialectical disauislfons on the alleged views of Christ. Had such dialectics been applied for example, to the development (Continued on page 135.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.