The Issue of Divorce

advocated legal curbs upon men, which would legally bind them to provide maintenance to the wife after the divorce. This maintenance sum was fixed according to Western living standards so that, in most cases, divorce meant that the man had to part with a fair amount of his hard-earned money for the rest of his life. Lord Bertrand Russell, one of the most intelligent and outstanding intellectuals of his time, was a victim of this unnatural state of affairs. Soon after his marriage, he discovered that his wife no longer inspired any feelings of love in him. Although realizing this incompatibility, he did not seek an immediate separation. Despite severe mental torture, he tried to bear with this situation for ten years. He refers to this period as one of “darkest despair.” Finally, he had to separate and remarry, but he was not satisfied even with the second match, and he married for a third time. Two divorces were a costly bargain. According to English law, the amount of alimony and maintenance he had to pay his wives upset him greatly. He writes in his Autobiography: “…the financial burden was heavy and rather disturbing: I had given Pounds 10,000 of my Nobel Prize cheque for a little more than Pounds 11,000 to my third wife, and I was now paying alimony to her and to my second wife as well as paying for the education of my younger son. Added to this, there were heavy expenses in connection with my elder son’s illness, and the income taxes, which