Judith Lacy's Jottings: Asunder in open court thankfully a thing of the past

My grandparents Ethne and Frank in happier times, circa 1952.

OPINION:

Have you Heard about the Depps of dirty laundry being aired in a Virginia courtroom?

Of course you have and probably - like me - wish you hadn't.

I can't explain it, not least because it's a defamation rather than a divorce case, but Johnny versus Amber got me delving into Papers Past.

Imagine if you were one of the parties involved in this 1924 contested divorce suit that played out in the Palmerston North Supreme Court. Percy Phillip Stevens, an auctioneer from Feilding, was seeking dissolution of his marriage to Alice Juliet Stevens on the grounds of alleged adultery with not one but two men. The co-respondents were Marton taxi driver John Blackwell and Hamilton railway employee Neil Whisker, who used to live in Palmerston North.

Mrs Stevens and the two men denied the adultery. The case lasted for three days before a jury of 12. The judge granted a decree nisi (provisional decree of divorce) to Mr Stevens to be moved absolute in three months. The costs of the action were entered against Messrs Blackwell and Whisker "on the highest scale".

In 1926, the Auckland Star reported more than 50 petitions were heard on an undefended divorce day. The precincts of the Supreme Court were crowded with men, women and children on the day reserved for the severing of marital bonds. "So heavy was the list that two judges were engaged handling the cases."

Six years on from that May day, Frederick William Bezar was defending the divorce petition from his wife, Florence Jane. She sought a divorce on the grounds of his habitual drunkenness and failure to maintain.

Mr Bezar conducted his own defence and suggested the cause of the trouble was "his wife's rigid views on drink, whereby she represented that one drink made a man drunk". He said he had never been really drunk in his life and what's more never convicted for drunkenness.

Justice Johnston said there wasn't sufficient evidence to support Mrs Bezar's claim and the petition was dismissed. We can only speculate who, if anyone, had a drink after the decision was delivered.

A Christchurch case that caught my eye involved Joan and Charles Wagner, reported in the May 24, 1928, Press. Charles' whereabouts were unknown and Joan sought a divorce on the grounds of desertion. She stated Charles was German and there were difficulties when the war broke out, her sympathies being with the Allies. Her petition was granted.

The court reports are replete with phrases we don't hear these days: restitution of conjugal rights, failed to comply with an order for restitution of conjugal rights, misconduct, desertion, private inquiry agent.

This is probably the first Jottings I've penned with no first-hand experience. Having never been married I've obviously never been divorced.

I can however take you back to the late 1970s. We were at the back of the school hall by the Civil Defence sign.

No one usually went there but Michelle had something to tell me and she didn't want anyone else to hear. Her parents were separating. They went on to get divorced.

I remember being shocked. All my other friends' parents were still together.

Looking back, I don't know why I was shocked as my paternal grandparents' marriage was dissolved in 1964. Two aunts also divorced as have my brother and numerous cousins.

Perhaps what was more unusual was Michelle and her sister lived with their father after the separation. He did a great job.

And surely that is what matters. People's wellbeing, happiness and safety.

While people might still buy the newspaper to check out the hatched, matched and dispatched section thank goodness we aren't fed a daily diet of the unmatched and uncoupling via court reports. I prefer mine and everyone else's dirty laundry in the washing machine.