On This Day, 15 December 1917

Evening Despatch

Saturday 15 December 1917

CHEAPER DIVORCE

BIRMINGHAM FREE CHURCHMEN AND MARRIAGE LAWS

A meeting of the Executive Committee of the Birmingham and District Free Church Council has passed a resolution recognising “the need of reform in the marriage laws of this country. In particular, it is of opinion that processes of relief, in cases of necessity, should be simplified and cheapened, so that divorce might not be the luxury of the well-to-do, and further that in some directions the grounds for divorce might possibly be extended.

“But it views with great apprehension the proposal now being made to make separation for three years a legal reason for divorce, seeing in such a provision a possible source of danger to our national life. And it most earnestly protests against such a proposal becoming the law of the land.”