The decision in the Clitheroe case has been treated by
many Magistrates as fatal to the practice of granting orders of separation between husband and wife. They are said to be superfluous, as, in fact, they seem to the lay mind to be. The Lord Chancellor and Lord Ether are vexed at this result of their decision, and possibly at the consternation created by their novel reading of the law, and on Thursday brought the subject before the Lords, nominally in answer to a question from Lord Winchilsea. Lord Halsbury declared that the Magistrates were gravely in the wrong, the Court of Appeal having only decided. That a. husband could not imprison his wife; and Lord Esher denied that the right of a husband to demand restitution of conjugal rights,. " whatever that phrase may mean, which I have never been able to make out," had been affected by the deci- sion. Lord Esher was extremely sarcastic ; but the fact remains that, as the Divorce Court cannot enforce the decree which it can doubtless give, and as the husband must not enforce it either, the deserted husband has no remedy at law. May we, in passing, be permitted to deprecate the precedent set by the Lord Chancellor and his colleague on the Bench of defending and explaining in Parliament a decision they have given in Court ? If they may defend, opponents may attack, and we know what in the Commons will be the result of that..
Previous page
