"Divorce!"

To a Mohammedan potentate, divorce is scarcely any problem at all. Under Mohammedan law he can terminate his marriage simply by saying to his wife at three specified times within a period of four successive months: "Talak! Talak Talak!" ("Divorce! Divorce! Divorce!").

In Singapore last week the news came out that H. H. the Sultan Ibrahim of Johore, one of the wealthiest Mohammedan potentates and an international swankster who has presented $2,500,000 to His Britannic Majesty's Government as a contribution toward building the Singapore naval base (TIME, Feb. 21), has of late been saying "Talak!" Thus His Highness has ended one of the most notable marriages in the Mayfair set, and one which for seven years had given every promise of strengthening the already cordial relations between Johore and England.

His Highness came to the throne of Johore in 1895, is one of the few potentates of such undoubted bravery that it has been his custom to hunt tigers afoot--the usual way is from a howdah. Years ago His Highness was attracted by the Scottish wife of his youthful physician, Dr. William Wilson. She was 17 years his junior, the daughter of a comfortable Glasgow family.

In 1930 the Sultan, then 57, followed Mrs. Wilson, who had left Johore and obtained a divorce, to England, married her, and by Johore's influence was able to get her presented at Court to King George V and Queen Mary, averse in general to receiving a divorcee. Back in Johore, the Sultan & Sultana celebrated their coronation on Nov. 18, 1931 with maximum Oriental pomp. The jewels worn by Her Highness were worth over $250,000 by conservative estimate. The Sultana promised the high priests of Johore to adopt the faith and customs of this Malay state. In 1934 Their Highnesses made a round-the-world tour, were photographed with Mae West. Last spring they were in London for the Coronation, feted everywhere in Mayfair and received by the new King & Queen.

In Johore it was considered beneath the dignity of Sultan Ibrahim to announce last week why he had divorced Sultana Helen, automatically depriving her of her rank. His Highness has a son, Crown Prince Ismail Tunku Mahkota of Johore, by his previous Malay wife, and most of his native subjects were delighted to have seen the last of "the Scotswoman." A British civil marriage performed in London, where the Sultan also married Mrs. Wilson at a mosque, had not at latest reports been dissolved, in Johore has never been considered worth the paper it was written on.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.