Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1912 — FREE DIVORCE HERE [ARTICLE]

FREE DIVORCE HERE

Severance of Marriage Ties in Norway Easy to Procure. ■ New Law t ls a Blessing—lts Enactment Has Not Been Followed by —a Rush of the-Dissatisfied to Courts. London.—Norway has now solved the divorce evil, a correspondent writes. At least so declares Fru Ella Anker, one of the leaders of the Norwegian women’s movement and a sis-ter-in-law of Herr Johann Castberg, minister of justice in the last Norwegian cabinet Herr Castberg framed the law of 1910, which is believed to have accomplished the miracle. Fru Anker has come to England to tell the Englishwomen of the success of her sex in Norway, and so struck with her accounts have been many influential women’s organizations that they have decided to agitate for an English divorce law modeled on the Norwegian measure. It was with the hope that Fru Anker’s knowledge would be of some assistance to you in the United States, floundering as you are in a divorce maze from which few are in agreement as to the surest way out, that I have had the following Interview, Fru Anker is a slight, pleasant faced, rosy complexioned, typical Scandinavian woman, with an engaging freshness of manner. She speaks English almost without a flaw, but is troubled, from an Interviewer’s point of view, with an amount of modesty and self-deprecation that is alinost disconcerting. But what she lacks in self esteem she more than makes up In her enthusiasm for the cause of women. She is, like most Norwegian women, absolutely sure that the beginning of the brighter era dawned in her country when partial adult .suffrage was granted to her sex. Certainly, declares Fru Anker, the women were the deciding

factor in putting through the law that 1b now likely to serve as a model for other countries. / '“First I want to make clear,” said Fru Anker, “that this law which has done so much to solve the divorce evil In my country was one of the direct results of the enfranchisement of my sex. The law was passed by a liberal government, but It had the support of all parties. It is based on the principle that mutual love between the husband and the wife is the only moral basis for marriage. When that feeling fails or is seriously shaken It is absurd to bind the two together any longer. The law ought then step in and provide the means for a divorce. Our law provides admission to separation as the preliminary to divorce when both parties request it, and similar relief when one requests it on such grounds as to make it probable that mutual good will is ruined. If there Is agreement between husband and wife, the law grants a divorce without inquiring into the reasons, hut as security that the step has been well thought over before action it provides that a year of separation must intervene between the application and the actual granting of the divorce. If the request Is made by only one party two years of separation must precede the actual divorce. “In my country divorce Is not looked upon as a disgrace, but rather as a relief from an unfortunate state of affairs. It is kept out of the courts as much as possible, the machinery being largely in the hands of administrative officials. The proceedings are very simple and extremely cheap. The cost varies in different cases, running from a little less than $1.25 to $25. It is not necessary to employ lawyers. It is the duty of the administrative officials to make their own investigations and to collect the necessary information, to settle the question of ihoney and to arrange for the care of [the children. “When a husband and wife agree that they want a divorce they appear

before a magistrate and ask for ‘an order.’ He sendß them to the conciliation board, a permanent Institution for mediation in all matters of judicial conflict. the officials of the conciliation board And it impossible to change the minds of tjhe couple the latter are granted a separation order. At the end of one year the ministry of justice is compelled tp make the divorce final if it is demanded by either husband or wife. “Infidelity on the part of either husband; or wife has been a ground for divorce In Norway since 1680. It is l still considered a crime, and the Offender pan be punished with penalties and imprisonment on the request of the other party. But few divorces are nowadays obtained on this ground, the couples preferring to come to an agreemenf and give no reason for their request for a divorce. In 1910 of the 390 divorces 237 were granted on the grounds of separation de facto, 131 by mutual consent, eleven on the ground of Insanity, two for bodfly unfitness and only nine for infidelity. “After separation and divorce the common property is divided-equally between the husband and the wife.”