DIVORCE LAW REFORM
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,-1 am naturally flattered that so eminent a lawyer as
Lord Salvesen should criticize my- article on Divorce Law Reform, and as a matter of public policy I am inclined to agree with his view that the sudden promulgation of divorce by consent might be dangerous. Indeed, if I were a dictator I should Merely assimilate the English to the • Scots law of divorce and leave the rest to public opinion. - There • is, however, no doubt that unless some such step is taken we shall find a new sort of legal-concubinage growing up on a contrac- tual basis which will- end in a dual system of lifelong marriage and contractual marriage, as occurred under the Roman Empire.
I must presume that Lord Salvesen read the evidence on divorce by''consent given before the Royal Commission ; but if so, I do not understand his conclusions. -My own conviction is that if once any sort of divorce exists the element of consent cannot' in fact be excluded. - How can fictitious adultery or 'desertion be detected if all legal formalities are observed ?
Moreover, an English lawyer once effected a marriage in Scot- land which could at any time have been abolished by the mutual consent of the parties, and many Scottish folk may have done the same.
Most divorces in England are in fact the result of mutual consent, and the reform we most need is a time limit to divorce which could be effected by imposing a period (say, two years) of probationary sefoaration. In any case, I cannot suppose that Lord Salvesen really approves of lifelong separation, though this solution of matrimonial differences is, in principle, accepted by the law of Scotland as well as by the law of England.—I am, Sir, &c., E. S. P. HAYNES. 9 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, W.C. 2.
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