MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL (Hansard, 12 May 1933)

§ Dr. O'DONOVAN

I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."

The hon. and learned Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Knight) opened his remarks last week by referring to the correspondence which he had received in respect of this Bill. Since I have ventured to differ from these proposals in this House, I too have received a spate of letters, which have revealed to me an outlook upon life and upon marriage that is indeed novel and that in no sense persuades me to waver from the position which I have taken up. I have been assured that my opposition is not only fatuous and silly, which I suppose is common form to all opposition, but also that it is actuated by a sadistic tendency —a theory of life that those who maintain the status quo and appreciate the value of stability in English life and in our marriage laws maintain that position for the delight which they receive in watching the sufferings of others under that condition of stability.

Then I am informed that those who are trying to oppose this Bill are desirous of continuing people in the position of men or women linked by the State to mad bulls or mad dogs. It is a pity that the word "mad" comes into this Debate, for if hon. Members had had to visit, as 1873 I have, at asylums, they would realise that the word "mad" in its popular connotation, is the very last word to use in these Debates. The atmosphere of modern asylums is in no sense like that of the old Bedlam houses. The patients there are quiet, orderly, intelligent, and clean in their ways, and quite a small percentage of them are in any sense violently and unpleasantly mad; and if their life is short, to those this Bill makes no appeal.

I cannot see any provision in this Bill by which a learned judge shall be assisted in dealing with the difficulties of medical certification by any qualified assessor. It is common form in approved society practice for medical certification to be attacked by those more trained in accountancy or in public life. Medical certification has a tradition of its own, a language of its own, and, I am assured, a handwriting of its own. Medical certification, can mean much or little, according to the standing of the certifier and according to the intention of those handling the document, and it world be some satisfaction to me, not that that is of great importance, and to those interested in the machinery of justice if one were certain that the courts working under this new Bill would be assisted by eminent specialists. In these days, it is rather an intolerable thought that the privilege of dispensing with an unhappy insane spouse should be a privilege of the rich. I am certain that medical certificates that may cost the fabulous fee of 6d. will not move a court to grant a divorce, but I see no provision in this Bill—it may be arranged by the procedure of the courts already, though of that I am ignorant—by which poor people seeking this alleged relief can receive expert medical assistance, so that the state of their spouse may be properly and not casually presented to the court. If that provision is not made in this Bill it might indeed appeal to Henry VIII and those who might be counted in that category, but it is no use to the asylum population of husbands and wives, for they are such poor people. In that sense this is a privilege Bill.

There is one point of medical detail on which I am sorry to detain the House, but it will be in the knowledge of most Members that a large part of the asylum population is made up of people in a condition of senile decay. I put to 1874 the House seriously the position that men who are elderly are by no means convinced that their marriage days are over. Widows becoming senile can easily and I think quite properly be put under public care, but think of the temptation of the enterprising younger woman to remind the elderly husband that his wife suffering from senile dementia, is, in the words of the Royal Commission, for all purposes, save physiologically, dead. We shall find an increased pressure put upon the public authorities to take away senile cases, to remove wives from husbands in order that husbands may venture afresh into the land of matrimony. I do not think that that is an attractive proposal to any sane senile husband, and it is in their interest that this avenue of a new life should be shut to them.

It is sad to see, the way in which to-day parental and other responsibilities are being shelved. Those of us who work among multitudes of people, such as is necessary in hospital life, are repeatedly brought against the singular carelessness for parental and blood responsibility. Parents come to us and demand that their "dead" children shall remain children of the State. They insist that their beautiful daughters shall be taken off their hands so that their life may clear of the responsibilities which are theirs. This Bill seems to me another expression of this modern demand of freedom from natural and inescapable and quite proper responsibility. The State is indeed a stepmother, whose arms are open to the full extent of public ability to bear taxation, but this Bill is another burden put upon the back of the public. Nothing was more apparent in the evidence given to the Royal Commission than the fact that many applications will be made for the dissolution of these marriages in the hope that the partner who is well may be free of the financial responsibility of maintaining husband or wife. The public authorities at present can recover some part of this expenditure, but it is dubious whether or not the public authority will, if the marriage be dissolved by the court, be able then to recover the cost of maintenance.

It is a more wholesome thing to prevent a trouble than to attempt to undo it. The more easy we make egress from the marriage bond the more lightly will it be entered upon. 1875 We have been reading only recently in the newspapers of the disgraceful facility with which marriages can be arranged in London in order that those who pursue illegal and improper avocations may remain in this country although they are aliens. It is reported by the police that marriages are arranged on a businesslike footing for a fee of £100 a marriage. Degenerates, those of weak mind, and those of criminal propensities can all too easily enter into marriage, and, if the exit from marriage is too easy, its entry will be too easy also. Marriage is a solemn contract. It involves in our present outlook on life lifelong responsibility, and it will be bad for this country if the common thought of the people should be contaminated by the idea that marriage is a terminable contract of no responsibility and that the State can shoulder all the troubles that may ensue.

There are fathers and mothers in England who look upon this Bill as a bad Bill. We have children who are the apples of our eye, sons and daughters dear to us, and we hope that when they enter the marriage state they will enter upon it with a partner who will be to them a faithful companion and a devoted and lifelong spouse. It will be tragic if we grow old with the knowledge that our children may enter upon marriage with all the ardour and hopefulness of youth, and yet knowing that this contract is unfortunately easily terminable; and that we in our old age may see a daughter perhaps unfortunately in an asylum with the status of a married woman in our eyes but, in the status of English law, dead in all but physiological properties, and our son-in-law wedded to another spouse. The proposition to me is revolting. When I spoke last week I raised my points in opposition simply as' a result of my own experience of life. The hon. and learned Member who introduced the Bill referred to the proceedings of the Royal Commission on Divorce, and I was astonished to find how little the position of my profession has changed since this Commission reported. At the risk of boring the House, I would like to bring up to date certain small parts of this Report. I will quote from page 182, where, in the Minority Report, it says: Insanity as a ground for divorce is unique in this respect, that it inflicts dissolution of marriage on a spouse for mis- 1876 fortune, and that even in cases where the insanity is really due to the fault of the other spouse who is seeking divorce. Unkindness and conduct producing distress may be quite incapable of legal proof, and perhaps only known to the unfortunate victim, and yet may be an effective cause of breakdown. It is one of the marks of progress of the last half century that insanity has come to be recognised as bodily disease and to be treated accordingly. It is surely a retrograde step to single out insanity only as a ground of divorce while the Majority Report does not venture to recommend that, for example, epilepsy or paralysis should be so treated. The Report goes on to emphasise, The great majority of experts on mental disease who gave evidence were very decidedly opposed to the proposal to make insanity a ground of divorce. This majority included four Commissioners in Lunacy, the Lord Chancellor's Visitor and a specialist of quite unique authority on this subject, Sir George Savage. His evidence is well summed up in his final answer: There is no doubt of the individual hardship, and that I have felt. I entered upon it with a feeling, I must say, rather in favour of divorce, but the more I have considered the individual reports from these people, and the more I have considered my own 40 years' experience, I cannot help thinking that there is not ground enough to justify the alteration.' We cannot admit that evidence of this character should be brushed aside as it is in the Majority Report on the singular ground that witnesses such as Commissioners in Lunacy and medical officers of asylums ' would object to any enactment which might prejudice in any way the welfare and comfort of those under their charge.' That is extremely probable, but we may be permitted to add that they are also the best judges of what would be prejudicial to the welfare and comfort of those under their care'. If in opposing this Bill I can do anything to prevent an action that would be prejudicial to the comfort and welfare of the insane then I am only carrying out what is the bounden duty of my profession, to care first of all for their sick, and to be tireless in preventing the interruption into the field of curative medicine or any action which may turn curable insanity into an incurable affliction.

One of the prices we pay for the pace of modern life is the growth of neurosis, so that many people live in a, state of inexplicable and almost incomprehensible fear. Those of us who have to practise in coroners' courts realise that the tide of suicide is increasing. It is quite easy by fear and by ill-treatment to turn neurosis into insanity. Think of the state 1877 of the frightened neurotic who, apparently normal, is carrying out his daily work in the world but who has behind him always the spectre of insanity, and if to that spectre of insanity, which haunts him, is the added fear that the wife of his bosom, flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, is, should this calamity happen to him, to be the spouse of another, then another terror will be added to his unhappy life, and the tide of suicide must necessarily increase. I and many of my brothers live daily in close contact with these people, and I am not dealing with a speculative side of the question. I am perfectly certain that should this Bill go through that mass of neurotics will be made more unmanageable.

This Bill was proposed to us with the suggestion that the opposition was religious. If that be so, that opposition is by no means to be neglected on that account. The difficulties and struggles between Church and State have been going on from the dawn of human history. It was said that William the Conqueror, when he sacked all the Saxon bishops and archbishops, held in his hand all the croziers of England. There was no claim made by William the Conqueror that was not made by all the kings, until they were made effective in King Henry VIII, who perhaps would be more interested in this Bill than any Member of this House. I cannot let the occasion pass without referring to a lapse on my part when in mentioning last week the Lords Spiritual whose presence must hover over this Debate, I made no reference to the great Cardinal Wolsey, whose intervention in a nullity of marriage led him to a most unhappy end, and opened a new Chapter in English Church and civil history. I am 1878 perfectly certain that, courageous as is the mover of this Bill, he has no desire to open another great and momentous chapter in our history of the struggle between Church and State.

The struggle over the delimitation of what is governed by ethics and what is governed by civil expediency is part of the make-up of man, who is in part spirit and in part body, and a Committee of this House is no place in which that struggle should be fought out. Here in this House there is ample evidence of the religious condition of public life. As Members enter this House they recall to our memory, by their bows, the old altar that once stood in Westminster Hall. We open our proceedings with prayer. We profess publicly that we are guided and guarded in all our doings by Almighty providence. To suggest that the marriage law is a fortuitous expedient convention, which may be altered as men think fit, is a proposition that is truly audacious, and quite out of touch with the traditions of this House and England. The Bill deals with only one of the proposals of the Royal Commission and why it has been selected I could not say, but it will be within the recollection of the House that the Royal Commission on Divorce proposed not only that incurable insanity but also cruelty, habitual drunkenness and even desertion for three years should be material for an effective divorce. There has been no explanation—