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Show 400,000 Childless Wives Arouse Britain To Divorce Problem . i By Harold E. Bechtol Europtan Manager af N. E. A. LONDON. Kniland, Dec. M. One of the moat active bodies dealing with peace prnblema In Britain today in the Uritlnh Divorce Law Reform union. Thla organisation la vigorously demanding de-manding lawa that will make It tattler for hastily wedded or other unhappily married couplea to secure separations. "There la no question of socittl reform re-form that la ao urgent and pressing from a woman's and a national point of view," asserts A. Horatio Taylor, chairman of the legal branch of the union. Oeorge names, member of the war cabinet, recently stated that there are about 400,000 child lens war wives In Hrltaln. Many of these marriages were hastily hast-ily contracted, contends the Divorce I -aw Heform union, and a relaxation of marriage lawa la necessary to enable en-able the unhappy part lea to obtain divorces di-vorces and gtsrt anew. By Rt. Vev. J. E. C. Wei Jon Bishep f the Chureh ef England, Farmer Bishop of Calcutta and Dean of Manchester. The problem of divorce demands the - earnest considerations of all- menHnd women who desire that society after the war should be better and happier than It waa before the war. Even before tha war tha marriage problem had become urgent. The number of women largely exceeded the number of men and some men who might have contracted marriages were unwilling to bear the en pen see or the anxiety of married life. Thla problem will be far more urgent In tha after war period beecause of tha many deatha of men who would naturally nat-urally have been trie husbands and fathers in tha coming generation. The state la Interested almost as fully as the church In Insuring the permanency of the marriage tie. But, if divorce la made-easy. It will become frequent, and every divorce meana the dissolution of a borne, with , grave Injury as a conseuence not so much perhaps to men aa ti Women and most of all to their children. Yet there are rases so hard, cates nreMnny of women who have' been so cruelly and shamefully treated, that they seem to cry aloud for alleviation. It Is difficult to believe that the common com-mon moral sense will ever acquiesce In the practice ef treating Innocent , girls whose divorce has hen In no manner or degree their own fault and hardened guilty men. In the event of their remarriage, with equal, indiscriminate indis-criminate severity aa adulterers. I hold, therefore, that the church, I while emphatically asserting and i maintaining the rule of marriage an a 1 1 felon g tie yet does possess tha In-: In-: innate power of granting exception or dispensation In extreme cases. It seems to me that the Judge who prnnouncee divorce might certify that ; nnw nf the parties tias tieen,"prvd TO j he wholly innocent and then the church might tn a spirit of divine I charity grant that party tha opportunity opportu-nity of divorce and of remarriage. I Ho the law of he atate would ba brought not 'indeed entirely, but as j nearly aa possible Into accord with the law of tha church. The solution of tha great problem i which lira Just ahead will not lie in easy or frequent divorce, but In a right estimate of llfo. Hays Chairman Taylor: "We are constantly receiving letters from these parties. U'e also receive hearthrenk-ing hearthrenk-ing human letters from deserted women who will not break the moral laws, hut go on living out their sterile lives In lonely, allent misery, when there are men waiting to bring Joy Into their Uvea If the law would al- , low It. . There are endless cases of women deserted and left with fnmllles who, to get home and protector for their families, have taken lh moral law nto their own hands." - 8lr Arthur Conan Doyle recently gave some Interest I nr testimony before be-fore the national birth rate commission. commis-sion. He took as a basis the figure of a half million separated couples and the statement before the recent divorce commission hearing that t0 per cent of divorced people remarried. Therefore, if divorces were made obtainable for the half million now separated, there would be about a q I utrter of a million remarried cou- ples. Crediting each fsmlly with an averse aver-se of three children, he said, there would be an actual addition to the pouulndon within a few years of 7K0.-000. 7K0.-000. Thus he held It no exaggeration to state that within a generation or so the ravagea nf war could be made up from this source alone. 8tr Kdward says: 'Kven If there are children, there Is no sanctity about a home In which man and wife are constantly at loggerheads. |