A DAY IN COURT

I was in court today to stand up for a friend who is having to go through the painful experience of divorce. An acquaintance with this case would make you believe in divorce. Sometimes divorce is the lesser of two evils, and life is such that our choices are sometimes between evils, rather than between good and evil.

Our new courthouse in Dallas, only a stone’s throw from the assassination scene, gleams with white marble and tinted glass. And it is a beehive of activity, most of which appears to be on the tragic side, for here are housed both the criminal courts and the domestic relations court. One doesn’t mingle in its sparkling halls and swift elevators long without hearing tales that move from the sublime to the ridiculous. There was a Negro man wearing the tag “Juror” who looked weary, but when I offered a kindly greeting he would only smile, which made me wonder if there was a rule against saying anything at all, but I forgot to ask. There were all sorts of people: lawyers with young couples, lawyers with lawyers, mothers with daughters, ministers with parishioners, officers, sheriffs, but no children, none at all.

There was an indefinability about it all, and yet I searched for a word to describe the atmosphere. It was too busy to be funereal and too important to be evil. I came up with the word futility; yes, there was an aura of futility. Even the amusing things seemed trifling. On the elevator one lawyer was telling of how the defendant had to die before he could finalize a divorce for his client, which seemed funny to him. Another lawyer was telling about getting a divorce for a couple, but they fell in love all over again before they got out of the building, proceeded to buy a marriage license and get married again within the hour. I too thought that rather amusing, but it seemed equally futile.

Another lawyer was instructing a client with a brand-new divorce not to marry within thirty days, for it takes that long for it to be final, during which time the judge can change his mind if he has the notion. He told of how he got a divorce for a city policeman, but forgot to warn him about the thirty days. The policeman married again during that period and was subsequently arrested for bigamy, and was then fired by the department for improper conduct. Maybe madness would be a better word than futility!

For two hours I sat there waiting for my friend’s case to be called, but it proved to be time well spent, for it was such a contrast to a university campus that I sensed a need to tune in on this part of our world too. As I sat there I noticed that Judge Beth Wright presides over one of the domestic relations court. She and I sat on a panel together at a Jewish temple in a symposium on marriage, so I thought I’d slip in and say hello while I was waiting. Standing before her was a young couple whose marriage had gone on the rocks, separated by the two lawyers standing between them as well as the decree of divorce the judge was soon to hand them.

The judge, who I recalled from the symposium believes that divorces are determined even before the marriage, was trying to determine the amount of child-support that the father should provide for the three souls he helped bring into this world. The poor fellow poured out his story of financial woes. He had had it! But the young lady, both firey and attractive, would tug at her lawyer’s coat, protesting with her whispering shouts. I had the thought that I’d like to have her in philosophy class. When one of the lawyers said, somewhat beside the point, “Well, your honor, the grandparents aren’t going to let those children starve,” Judge Wright said: “I suppose that’s what’s wrong with the marriage. They’ve depended on their parents so much that they haven’t learned to stand on their own feet.” After taking her pencil and figuring rather closely to what the mother would need to farm the kids out while she worked, plus other expenses, she ruled that the father should fork over $40 a week, except she didn’t use the term fork over. It was less than the gal was asking for, but somewhat more than the man had offered.

I followed them out of the courtroom, for I wanted to see it with my own eyes if they fell in love all over again and got married again within the hour. He walked out ahead of her as dejected as a football player who has just fumbled in the end zone. He didn’t step back and hold the gate for her. They didn’t speak or even look at each other. She disappeared with her lawyer; he lingered with his lawyer in the lobby, promising to pay him something somehow. Then he walked away, beaten like a rug. I pitied him and had a compulsion to talk to him, but I resisted the temptation. It would have been impertinent. They impressed me differently. The girl scared me, and yet I could see how any man might be attracted to her. He impressed me as a spoiled schoolboy who had asked for what had happened. Wow, there must have been a lot of cat-and-dog fights leading up to that one! Once I was sure they weren’t going to do a double-take on their marriage, I hurried back to the judge’s horror chamber, where I witnessed still more divorces handed out to young and old alike. I got in my hello to Judge Wright, who suggested we might visit during court recess, but I didn’t choose to bother her rest period.

Then I went to the adjoining courtroom where still more domestic problems were being laid bare. I am now convinced that it would be a good regulation to require all those who apply for marriage license to spend one hour in the domestic relations court as an onlooker.

One couple, with the usual two lawyers separating them as they stood before the bench, especially attracted my attention, for it was a case of a father asking the court if he might be allowed to have his little three-year old son spend the night with him “just one night a month,” as he pathetically put it. They had been divorced a year or so, and the father had been faithful in child support, and had been visiting his son regularly on weekends for a few hours. But his former wife and her lawyer did not want him to, insisting that the child should not be away from his mother.

I wondered how the judge would decide the case, but I could see the way he was thinking when he asked the mother: “I understand that when you were living together the child could spend the night with in-laws on both sides. Why can’t he spend the night with his father and grandparents now that he is a year older?” The couple’s resentment toward each other was evident. His feelings were aggravated because his former wife was so unreasonable about letting him be with his own son. He had to go to court to get the child for one night a month. Her countenance revealed hurts that went deep into her soul. She didn’t even want to look at him, and I do believe they went through the whole procedure and managed to get out of there without even looking at each other.

I pitied them both and thought it sad that a little boy had to suffer for the failures of his parents. But I was touched by the father’s effort to spend the night with his little son. Many fathers in that situation wouldn’t care. He told the judge that he would like to have the boy for the entire weekend, two nights, just once a month. But the judge allowed only one. In Texas courts, if not in other states, the mother can call the shots pretty well as she pleases. While we have no alimony laws, the state shows little mercy when it comes to child-support. The father goes to jail if he doesn’t pay—and pay on time.

As I witnessed these couples dissolving their marriages in court, I thought about their days of romance and happiness. There was their first date, and each suspected later that it must have been love at first sight. She smiled at him then, and he could hardly keep either eyes or hands off her. There was laughter and faith and hope. There was the fun of becoming engaged and planning the wedding, and then the wedding itself. Friends and loved ones wished them well. After awhile there were children.

Then something happened … In the lives of each couple something tragic happened.

There they stand before the judge, not caring either to speak to or to look at each other. Love has turned into hate. A judge must serve as a balance wheel between them for the protection of their children.

The difference the Christ would have made in their lives! In Him they could have found the strength to forbear each other’s weaknesses. The love that He inspires would have overcome hurts and resentments. Jesus would have made them kind, thoughtful, and gentle toward each other. Had the Lord been allowed to stand with them in their efforts to build a home, lawyers would not be standing with them now. But did they want the Lord’s help? Did they pray together? Did they ask, seek, and knock? Herein is the tragedy, that weak, mortal man attempts to work the miracle of a happy home without drawing upon the spiritual resources available to him. Futility!

Well, our case was soon to be called. But there stood a courtly Negro man with his son, and I supposed the older gentleman was a preacher. The son was dissolving his marriage. His wife had been “running around with another men,” according to the testimony, but she wasn’t there to contest it. The judge asked the young man to raise his right hand and to swear that he would tell the truth, the whole truth, etc. At this point the father spoke up and said, “He doesn’t swear, your honor …” The judge kindly suggested that he could say “I affirm” just as well, as if maybe he had encountered that little difficulty many times before.

The father had taught his boy not to swear, and he was there to see that he did not do so even in court, even if he did have to do the talking for his grown, married son. But he didn’t teach him how to live. He is convinced that when Jesus said “Swear not at all” He had reference to just such occasions as a court of law, and it would be hard to persuade him that the Lord really meant that one’s character should be such that swearing (or affirming for that matter) would be unnecessary. It appears that Jesus and Paul both were willing to submit to oaths (Matt. 26:63 and 2 Cor. 1:23).

The young Negro left the court with his divorce, and without having to swear. It all seemed so futile.

Our case was called. With a stroke of the judge’s pen it was all over. After many hours of pleading and praying, and years of waiting—waiting for a return to sanity and decency —a marriage of nearly thirty years was over. I was convinced that this was one marriage that could not be saved, and I was sure that our sister in the Lord had done all she could. But I know the husband too, and he too is my brother in the Lord. My efforts had all been futile.

Outside on the street the sun was bright and the air fresh. Everybody was in a hurry. Downtown Dallas was busy. I looked up at the building across the street where Jack Ruby, the world’s most celebrated criminal, lives, either sane or insane. Across the way I glanced once again at the place where a young American president was murdered. People were milling around, taking pictures, gaping and pointing at the world’s most notorious window, as they always are when I pass that way.

In a rack on the corner the Dallas News had black headlines about Vietnam. The coming election was in the air.

I was due to lecture to a class of girls on Plato’s view of immortality. So I too hurried along.