Divorce, Proper Style

As if he didn't have enough to ponder, Nelson Rockefeller came in for some criticism on yet another aspect of the divorce question. From a New York City rabbi came the suggestion that Rocky should now take a personal interest in getting New York State's divorce laws changed.

New York recognizes adultery as the sole ground for divorce. The law thus encourages divorce-bound people to commit little white lies by establishing "residence" in states where the divorce laws are less rigid. Said Bronx Rabbi Maurice J. Bloom in a sermon last week: "It is not fair to the citizenry when only the rich can take dubious advantage of fictitious residence in another state for a brief time, and the less opulent are given an example of avoiding our laws by those who can afford it. If New York State had a proper marriage and divorce code, neither Governor Rockefeller nor his first wife [who got a Nevada divorce on the ground of extreme mental cruelty] nor his present one [who got hers in Idaho for "grievous mental anguish"] would have had to acquiesce in a course of action which is at variance with the laws that, as Governor, he is required to execute."

The Governor, said Rabbi Bloom, has the duty to say "that he believes in a reform of the law," and to urge the state's G.O.P.-controlled legislature to "revise the law in the direction of easing its harsh provisions." Such provisions, added the rabbi, are nowhere to be found in Judaism's moral tenets. "Judaism," said he, "believes in making marriage laws to safeguard marriage and easy divorce laws to make it possible to repair mistakes made by the application of those strict laws. Judaism stresses the sanctity of marriage, and for that reason it does not condemn people to live together where strife and incompatibility would mar good family life."

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