1957-07-25 — Page 4

Communist indifference to the sanctity of marriage, added to the pressing demands of the State upon the time and energy of the workers, is resulting in so many broken homes in the Soviet bloc countries that the authorities are beginning to view the situation with unaccustomed anxiety. In Poland, says David Laidlaw, the divorce figures for 1955 wore 250 per cent higher than in 1952....

Marriage in The Red

BROKEN marriages are becoming so

common in the Soviet bloc countries that even the Communists—who are not normally unduly concerned about the sanctity of married life—are beginning to get worried. Everywhere articles in the Press report soaring divorce rates, the fashion for "short-term” marriages, "illegal cohabitation" and hooliganism resulting from broken homes.

in

The chief reason for this situation is the past Com- munist attitude to marriage. Communists have always been rather in favour of weakening family ties the belief that this would strengthen the hold of the State on individual members. Accordingly, the first thing they did in all the countries where they have seized

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1957.

MARRIAGE UNDER COMMUNISM

By DAVID LAIDLAW

a Scot who has travelled widely in Eastern Europa, and made a special study of conditions imposed by Russia.

power was to remove marital we have to accept." and family relations from 8, 1950). the authority of the Church. Church marriage ceremonies now have no legal force and may be held only after a valid civil ceremony.

COMRADE Y

resting

Touring &

DOMRADE

senwell

COMRADE Q

{TOMÁPICE O LOBcupied

fragile

COMRADE bugy

M

away

COMPADE Z held up

COMRADE K

holiday

COMRADE S.. at home

COMRADE M. rusticated

"All those in favour say 'Aye'—the “Ayes' have it!”

CONRADA Y SAriping

non leave!

Cummings

A Growing Threat to British Oil Fields As

NASSER

(January

And Sometimes couples hard to work or even to live in the same elty.

FIRAQ¬ it

KUWAITS

The rise in the divorce rate has

A decreo limiting the been particularly noticeable in those number of new residents countries where Church in specifies that marriages con- fluence and conservative tracted after a given doto constitute grounds social patterns made divorce do not Divorces are granted a rarity before

now spouse the war, permitting the quickly and chenply. Very Poland, once a strong Roman to reside in some Bulgarian often "intellectual" and Catholic country, now

has cities, "ideologien!" differences are the highest divorce rate in put forward by couples. As the world. grounds for divorce, be- cause they know that these

The October 30, 1055, issue of reported that will be accepted by the Nowa Kultura,

cases of divorcu courts without further the number

had considered by the courts question.

doubled between 1952 and 1954, Ugure was 250 while the 1955 per cent above that of 1952.

No stigma attaches to divorce, An article In the Polish news- paper Nowa Kultura of October 30, 1955, declared:

The man

who fell in love once in his life. went straight to the aller and his was thereafter faithful to

Signiiicantly the divorce rale

The paper Olechestven Fron! of June 18, 1955, blamed this stafo o; affairs 10T many divorces. "The family is not strengthened when a man has to work for yenm in a different town from his wife," It stated..

Rather belatedly the Com- munists

realising that juvenile delinquency, previousty altributed subversion" and can

Arc

to lack is lowest among the rural po- pulation. In Poland the ratlo

and between rural

urban divorces is one to niue, while In

up

to

work

without

women

RIYADN

PERSIA

Persian

BAHREINE

DAMMAN

PLOTS

MUSCAT AND OMAN

MILES

EGYPTE SAUDI

ARABIA

BURAIMI

RIZWAH

BURAIMI

SAUDI ARABIA

MUSCAT AND;

OMAN Arabian Sea

Oilfields & Possible as smugging routesse mun mundo

Throat is growing to British ollfields

me:

Guns, money.....

We sat on carpets. Servants brought coffee and a magni- rent banquet of whole roant sheep, rlee, and onions,

Zald plunged his right hand deep into the rice, motiones ma

and follow,

murmurca: Ho "Soud is a dangerous mah,

10

NEW WAR

FROM

COLIN LAWSON

more oil

Oman-which lag a pro-British possibilities of ruler, Sultan Said bin Taimur, Nasser, because he is prepared For the United States, bowing to co-operate even with kings in to demands by Saud, is sending his anti-British drive,

Surplus weapons modem weapons to him. released to challenge the sultan's thus

authority and undermisë British influence.

аге

Nasser figures he can use which his agents can step upf Muscat as a springboard from

and-Brilish hatred und inaltrato into the all-important 'cll'arcas of Qatar, Babreln, and Kuwait.

And Araindo, say all the . shriks I hayo isiked, fo ̈itis' » month of

desert travel, Is working against Brilh Interests too

Buraimi.

Sheik Zald's brother, DESERT shelk fingered Shakbut, whose territory to "Western propaganda",

a ceremonial dagger at includes Burnimi. often be traced

of his waist as he told

There BTC parental control resulting from "Beware of Nasser.

two route for smuggling them in:- these conditiere.

"His wish to become

By sea from the Saudi coast The Pallsh newspaper

The pro-British Shakbut and Nasser are up to their old on to Oman beaches; Glo friends again with Britain wile the end of his days Hungary there are three times

By land from Saudi into Fracy stated on September 14, is a trap. He will use it to told me that a combination gamer. has become a letion and an

as many divorces in Budapest ca 1866, that two million

Oman, skirting Buraimi. of Saudi Arabian money. nnachronism." Another article

Ac- in all the rural districts,

were foretd

"If they conquered Muscat and from lull you to sleep."

Royal Naval patrols have been Unofficial go-betweens have stated categorically that "life-

and Egyptian cauning is Oman and Installed a puppet stepped up to intercept dhows scunded out several sheiks, on long monogamy Do Innger cording to Nowa Kuttura, "this economic necessity and that 43

WITC being And Sheik Zaid, of the working to stir up armed Government, my part of Buraimi carrying arms, but the coast line the chanets of American oil exists" and that the "one-parent is because in the village the old a result children

brought

would proper vital strategic strongpoint revolt in Muscat and Oman, on three sides by the enemy." and the ships too few.

untenable, surrounded is too long a thousand miles companies being given conces Jamily is an institution which model of matrimony has been

sions in land now operated preserved together with the old supervision. At the eighth session of Buraimi, in South-East across the border

Zaid recently visited the of the Polish Parliament

British-officered· Arab troops exclusively by the British, and moral customs." April, 1950, a delegate,

Arabia, added: "I have Buraimi. Guns and money United States and London. And are also making long-range And the shelke ballove the The "growing clear evidence Nasser is at are pouring in.

insisted: "Aramco serious alarm at

(the deseri patrols to intercept lorry U.S. State Department is turn- The Bulgarian paper, Oleche- demoralisation

Arablan American Oil Com and camel caravans gun-running ing a blind eye to attempts to the young work in

area with

pany, operating in Saudi) jumps into Oman,

undermine British sinen Front,

influence of January 14, people" and drew attention money and underground

to Saud's orders, And it has

Nasser is working through his along this wild, untamed, but 1995, sald that "short-term the Importance of the education-

powerful influence with the agents with money and pro- vital Gulf coast. marriages have become fashional influence of the family," agents."

United States Government.” paganda among dissident désert If the Saudis and Egyptians. able among young couples who thing heretofore underestimat- THE TARGET BRI-

The Americans, knowingly or tribesmen in shelledoms allied penetrate here it would be only unknowingly. arc assisting in to Britain by treaty..

a matter of a short time before arms for a "bern- Thus the absolute monarch the most vital installations in providing

world tion army" being trained in and the dictator are in alllance, the

the British Eastern

Saudi, and also for Baud, because he wants to boss economy were menaced-Qatar, those smuggled into Muscat and Mu7 and Oman for its Bahrein and Kuwait.

Eau de Cologne

de

Jean Patou

PARIS

On sale at all Dispensaries and Perfume

Counters,

Sale Agents:

K. Caudron & Co.

French Bank Bldg., 3rd fl

»Bayer's « TONIC

traditions

wish to imitate the modern way, ed." of life,"

among

in

voiced

to

TAIN'S OIL.

That conditions are utsalis- To get to Buraimi I had

It quoted

Bulgarian factory was tacitly admitted in ONO (married and divorced four 1958 in the encouragement times within three years)

ล

or to take a Land-Rover from

in the use of contraceptives and Abu Dhabi. There, saying: "The divorce petitions the legalisation of abortion for palace in the sands, lives cost very little, For me, marri- "social" as well as medical rea- age is like a toolball match; you guns, lo Poland. Hungary and buy a ticket and take your Bulgaria. chances on the game."

But, quite apart from the Communist attitude to

ARTIE

In

In Polux one speaker, while deploring the "loss of faith social progress" which the new abortion inw represented, never-

marriage, the chief reason theless admitted that "It would for unsatisfactory family be naive to claim that the Po- life lies in the overwhelming ish people are now living

demands

conditions"

in

(Slowo on the Powszechne April 28, 1050).

by the State Idyllic economic machine

workers' time and energy.

In Bulgaria was announced on April 27, 1956 that abortion

Wonien cre expected to work facilites would be grented to all as well as run their homes and women who asked for them at care for children, but little at- a fee of 50 leva (approximately tempt is made to meet their in-. HK$40). terests. For example, these in factories frequently find that they Significantly, the cnnounce- cannot get holldays at the same. ment was received almost with- time as their husbardis,

out comment.

KÉT MÁRKANSASCON

ELECTRICAL

PERIH STAYIN

POST MURHAGER FILLIO

Too

A

many

CRISIS

babies

from JOHN SMEATON: The Hague

from

"But go to Buraimi your self," said Shakbut, "and talk with my people."

So for 120 miles, in as temperature of 130 de grees, my Land-Rover roared through the de- sert.

The driver reduced him- self, the vehicle, and me to jellies, crashing over boulders, through camel herds and round deep sand drifts.

he

PIED

I

ما

PIPER MARCH

WAS phoned early one morning and implored

I was a limp mass of songy to leave my sick bed to meet bruises when, like a mirage, the Russian newsreels, They Buraimi appeared on the sky-wanted to film me and my line. It is a group of villages covering 100 square miles,

car.

IN MOSCOW

The military policemen near-

ly

went wild

Through a gap in a mud wall I hadn't the heart to let when they w surrounding the sheik's private them down as they have all all these stand- garden in the central casts, been no cerribly kind and ing

up in the was conducted to Zald; He is a

which is powerful man with a straggling are so enthusiastic about my car

against beard and humorous brown visiting Moscow by car il culte eyea,

who has

refused the way from England. I the city rules. 420,000,000 bribe to back King thought the least I could do Saud's claim to Buraimi,

may

Holland can keëp a big popula-

tion is by Industrialisation.

start

A strongly developed love of home life-In C rectri

home,

blow They their whistles and threw their

would be to turn out.

What went on afterwards arms in the cir trying to Indi- cate photogra phera

and film cameramen that Bil they must

I shall never forget. It was one of the craziest and funniest experiences I have had.

to

tho

down. But no

one socmed to

take any notics.

Patricia Smyllie

I could have been in the Before the war it was primar- poll 75 per cent of the people heart of Hollywood instead ily an agricultural country Now interviewod BAID they spent of Moscow. more and more factories are most of their leisure line at

There was a battle going on of traffic. Neither of is under being built,

More than a thousand people among the photographers to ace stood the other's language. Investigations have already baen mode in an attempt to dir4alrong religious influence had gathered outside the Hotel who could stand up the longest

and looked to Metropole

on and get the best shots of the by Churchta opposed cover why Holland has a com-

at curlously

tho newsreel British, ears following then, THE population of Holland is increasing so rapidly bination of a HIGH birth-rate birth control.

These are the officiat, repasons, cameramen rushing backwards art emer- and a LOW death-rate.

and forwards enthusiastically gency committee to study ways and means of keep- The main reasons listed co But I made some inquiries of my ing 11,000,000 people in a country, the size of East far by the Government Experts own, I asked a taxi driver If he trying to get better angles, Anglia.

Exceptionally good health

Already, with an average Dr G. Lammers, chief of there is one doctor to every of nearly 900 people to the the Government's information 1,000 people.. square me, Holland is the services, told me: most densely populated There is no doubt that this 2 Cleanliness-there is a sny- country in the world. And is Holland's Timber one probing that if a Dutchman is washing himself he is lem. And it lools like getting not the rapid rise in population were. The population quez washing his children, or his

it has gone up nearly tion is continually at the top of house, 3,000,000 in 11 years is the Cabinet's agenda." expected to continue until the year 2000.

Government' Ho and other officials agree that the only way

had a family.

The Moscow newspapers had also sent along their cameramen to join in the melee.

"Four children," he said, "Al my friends have four or five.”

***Keeping up with the Jánment?" could be the most im portant reason of all.

Then a most amusing procce Blon through the streets of FOOTNOTE: While I have Moscow began. I let the way, been dictating this story ave with the A.A. van behind me, children have been born in Holland, according to statistics.

The Russian cameramen had plied into an enormous open black Zla with as many new paper photographers as could ponibly" aqubeze in as well

DUTCH POPULATION 18 SOARING

But it wasn't an unfriendly cerainble as they were all roar- Ing wRK laughter,

As I careered rather denger- ously through Moscow's streetd salling round suddenly as one has to tf one has to go in the opposite direction, the little man nervotily tapped out a violent tattoo with a feet on the Roor

As he's my erratic driving he put his hands over We tacó and got, his head down, peering nervously through his ingers.

As he got out he shook hands! and reared with laughter.

"Miles Smiles" ho said that Is what everyone calls me bere

ein moment, ein momento. With that he handed his Half-way through one of the camera to another photographer cameramon got in beside me to and had his picture taken stand-

help me get into the right line ing bealde mo amiling breadky.

THEN TAXIS By this time hordes of taxis had joined in the ride around Moscow. Their occupants were all madly yelling out their

tha destinations, but

good humoured faximen followed un

rotead