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The History of Divorce in Scotland
r
I \HE variety of divorce laws in the United States is a
A favourite subject
for observation and animadversion.
Newspaper and magazine writers are fond of pointing out
that in the State of Washington the Court can grant divorce,
if satisfied that, for any cause, the parties can no longer live
together ; that New York has divorce only for adultery ; and
that South Carolina has no divorce at all. We are apt to
forget how great is the dissimilarity between the divorce laws
of England, Ireland, and Scotland. The ignorance of welleducated
people on the is
subject astounding. An English
squire, university bred, recently asked me I why had been
made a member of the Royal Commission on Divorce in
' *
England. You know,' he gravely said, you can't have had
any experience ; You have no
' l
Ireland !
and this
divorce
Commission is confined to
at all in Scotland. You
England.
are like
Consider how important the differences are : First, in England
and Scotland divorces are granted by courts of law in ; Ireland
the remedy can be obtained only by Act of Parliament. Second,
in Scotland
in England divorce is
given only for adultery ;
desertion, wilful, without lawful excuse, and so long continued
as to imply a permanent abandonment of the marital relation,
is considered sufficient ground for divorce, being thought to
come equally within the principle enunciated in Shakespeare's
description of '
adultery, such a deed as, from the body of
the contract, plucks the very soul.' In Scotland it is con-
sidered that not only does desertion, like adultery, involve a
1 A book, elaborate and learned, like that by the late Dr. Luckock, Dean of
Lichfield, entitled The History of Marriage, Jewish and Christian, In relation to
divorce and certain forbidden degrees, may furnish one explanation. He discusses
the laws of the United States and the British Colonies, of Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Germany and Switzerland; and he never alludes to the Scotch
system, which has stood the test of 350 years' experience, under conditions similar
to those in England.
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