16 MARCH 1861, Page 14

THE RETURN ON DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES.

THE one honest doubt expressed at the time the Di- vorce Act was passed—and the experience of three years has not, we think, tended to lessen it—was, whether the measure, while removing the disabilities which bad hitherto weighed so oppressively on the poor man, might not, by weakening among the people at large the general sense of the sanctity of the marriage rite, open the door to evils, differing, indeed, in kind, but not inferior in degree, to those which it waa designed to remedy. A document, however, is now before us which may, perhaps, afford us some aid in coming to some kind of conclusion on this point. It consists of a Parliamentary Return, moved for by Mr. Malins, of the number of causes for dissolution or nullity of marriage, judicial separation, and restitution of conjugal rights, which have been filed in the Registry of the Divorce and Matrimonial Court from January 11, 1858, to August 21, 1860; together with the date at which each petition was filed, and that of the act of adultery on which it is based. Some of the statistics contained in this report are sufficiently curious. We find that the number of petitions for dissolu- tion of marriage is considerably greater than the aggregate amount of those for all other objects which are within the scope of the Court ; the former amounting to no less than 604, while there are only 195 petitions for judicial separa- tion, 13 for nullity of marriage, and 32 for restitution of conjugal rights. An actual divorce a vincula, with permis- sion to marry again, is obviously the object which the ma- jority of the petitioners seek to obtain from the hands of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. How many out of this large number of petitions for dissolution of marriage have been actually disposed of, is a point on which we have no certain informa- tion. There were, on August 11, 1860, 141 of these causes set down for trial. That the Court has not been inoperative is shown by the fact that a dissolution has been decreed in no less than 239 cases, while it has been refused only in 19. And it is a very striking and suggestive fact, from which we leave the reader to draw his own conclusions, that in no less than 212 cases for dissolution of marriage, no defence what- ever was attempted by the respondent. One of the most interesting features in the Return, and one which bears strongly upon the general question of the expediency of the Divorce Court, is the statement of the date of the act of adultery on which each petition for dissolution of mar- riage is based. In one case we find the petition resting upon an act committed so far back as 1823. The general result, however, is that the largest numbers belong to the years from 1857 to 1860. The largest of all belongs to 1858, the year in which the Act came into operation, no less than 85 petitions referring to acts of adultery com- mitted in that year. This is a somewhat awkward fact for those who maintain that increased facilities for procuring a divorce produce no effect on the morals of the people. It tends to cast dlicredit on the old plea that the majority of petitions for divorce were merely the wiping out of old scores. We do not mean to assert that the establishment of the Divorce Court has set a premium upon adultery by showing it to be a ready and convenient means to escape from an irksome connexion ; but it certainly has not tended to make it an event of less frequent occurrence than before. The same proportion which we have observed in the ease of petitions for divorce, holds good with respect to those for judicial separation, in which the last three or four years have been especially fruitful. A decided majority of the latter class of petitions rest upon charges of cruelty, the number of these amounting to 105, while there are only 79 of adultery, and not more than 15 of desertion. This is only what might have been expected. Legal cruelty is a remarkably vague and elastic offence ; and is far more likely to be adduced as a plea for separation than the more definite acts of adultery and deser- tion. A jury is far more open to the influence of a sen- timental and quasi-chivalrous feeling on a charge of this kind, especially when it is supported by the impassioned eloquence of a clever and sympathizing counsel. The old declamation against the brute who lays his hand on a lovely woman, except in the way of kindness, finds a scarcely less ready response in the jury-box of the Divorce Court than in the gallery of the Victoria Theatre. The humorous sketch of a trial on such a charge in Sir Cresswell Cresswell's Court which appeared some time ago in Once a Week, though doubtless partaking largely of the nature of a caricature, was not, we are inclined to think, very far removed from what might, possibly at least, be the actual truth. We wish very much that Mr. Malins had included among the points on which he required information a statement of the number of suits for judicial separation which have been submitted to a jury. If he had done so, we fancy that no small propor- tion of them would have been found to depend upon charges of cruelty.. Another point which might usefully have been included in the return, as bearing in no slight degree upon the practical working of the Court, is a specification in the case of each petition, either for dissolution of marriage or for judicial separation, as to whether the petitioner were the husband or the wife. Mr. Maas did ask for a return of the number of cases in which the petitioner was examined at the trial ; but no information is afforded on this point, it not being the practice to preserve a record of this circumstance in each case. As regards the practical utility of the Court in protecting the property of a wife who is deserted by her husband—which is, perhaps, of all branches of its jurisdiction, that in which its influence is most unquestionably beneficial —we find that eighty-five applications for this purpose have been brought before it during the two years and a half which are included in the Return.

Even with the aid of the mass of curious and interesting information which this return has placed within our reach, it is by no means an easy matter to form a definite and de- cided opinion as to the actual effect upon society, produced by the operation of Sir Cresswell Cresswell's Court. We are, on the whole, inclined to think that the very difficult pro- blem of preserving a juste milieu between a virtual pro- hibition of separation, and a fatal facility in granting dis- solution, has not yet been solved in an entirely satis- factory manner. Divorce is unquestionably, under certain circumstances, a necessary evil ; but we should wish to see it confined within the narrowest possible limits. The circumstances under which it is possible should be defined in the strictest manner. Above all, we should wish for a far more exact definition than is at present procurable of that vaguest of crimes, legal cruelty. If the lawyers are of opinion that it is impossible to define it more exactly, it would surely be better to remove it altogether from the number of causes which entitle a wife to a judicial separa- tion from her husband. At least, while it remains in its present uncertain condition, it should assuredly never be submitted to the decision of a jury. In fact, in the great majority of causes either for dissolution of marriage or for judicial separation, we think that the decision might most safely be entrusted to the judge alone ; and we should be in- clined to confine within very strict limits the cases in which it was permitted to elect to have the cause tried by a jury. And, finally, we heartily desire to be freed from the nume- rous and grave inconveniences which necessarily result from the existence of a distinct and separate law of marriage and divorce, in each of the three provinces of the United Kingdom.