Law: Weekly Ration

Husband's divorce bid fizzles

How much sex is reasonable for a couple married ten years? For Brenda Mason, 31, of Basingstoke, England, one session a week, usually on Saturday night, was quite enough. Her husband David, 30, a mechanic, favored a more ambitious schedule. Despite his best efforts, including a vasectomy to ease his wife's fear of a third pregnancy, sex remained "rationed," as he put it. In frustration he sought and won a divorce at Exeter Crown Court in May. But two weeks ago, a trio of sexagenarian judges (ages 62, 65 and 69) overturned the Exeter decree. Said Lord Justice Ormrod, married 42 years: "It seems to me quite impossible for any court to find that the refusal by a wife to have sex more often than once a week is unreasonable. It seems an extraordinary proposition."

The ruling has stirred up plenty of passion in London's tabloids. Wrote Marje Proops of the Daily Mirror: "Since each individual is unique I don't see how any judge can put a time span on love." Added Alix Palmer of the Daily Star: "It is a question which preys on the minds of a great many people, both male and female, married and single. It is very far from being just a giggle, although that is often the best attitude to take if the mathematics don't go your way." Daily Star readers, invited to air their own views, sent in letters criticizing the appeals court 9 to 1.

The furor may partly reflect the fact that England and Wales now have eleven divorces for every 500 couples, about twice the overall Western European rate (though still below the U.S.'s 12 per 500 couples). Under the Divorce Reform Bill of 1969, Britons may select one or more of four tests to demonstrate that a marriage has broken down irretrievably. Mason, for example, sought to show that he could not reasonably be expected to continue living with his wife. His initial success in court may have been due to the Exeter judge's ability to observe the Masons' disharmony directly; the appeals judges, on the other hand, were confronted only with a paper record that forced them to focus almost exclusively on the sexual problem.

Their decision forced Mason to cancel plans for a Christmas marriage to a 29-year-old divorcee with whom he has taken up residence. Said he: "It's all right for the judges to say it is not unreasonable. I had to live with it." He hardly shares Brenda's hopes for a reconciliation and now must delay his second wedding 3½ years to satisfy a five-year living-apart provision that the 1969 law offers as another basis for divorce. His fiancee remains optimistic that everything will work out, even their desire to have children. Mason, she says, hopes to have his vasectomy reversed.