"Roving eye responsible for marital rifts" from the March 3, 1970 Door County Advocate
A FAMILIAR SCENE in District Attorney James Pankratz' office is that of a troubled couple seeking advice. Pankratz, who is also Door county's family counselor usually refers those with deep-seated problems to a psychiatrist or professional counselor. Pankratz, facing camera, is shown with models in this posed picture. —Advocate
Roving eye responsible for marital rifts
"Oh, where have all the good times gone?"
At least one out of every five beaming young couples who profess undying love 'til death do us part' will wind up in the divorce court claiming cruel and inhuman treatment. This is not the national statistic (which is one out of four) but the results of a survey made here in Door county.
Divorce is no respecter of age, position, wealth, religion or time. Marriages which have weathered decades of ups and downs may abruptly end in their 30th or even 40th year. Others don't survive long enough to see the first candle lit on the anniversary cake.
The reasons vary depending on whom you talk to. While cruel and inhuman treatment is the common complaint, that ambiguous term covers a multitude of sins—not the least of which is philandering.
District Attorney James Pankratz, the county's family counselor, blames extra-marital flings for the majority of divorces. Judge Edwin Stephan attributes the high rise in wrecked marriages to plain, unadulterated selfishness. Divorcees themselves say 'we just couldn't get along together' or 'life is too short to live with someone you don't love.'
In 1968, 147 marriages were performed, 45 divorce actions filed and 30 divorces granted. In 1969, 149 couples were wed and 49 divorce actions filed. Several of these will be dropped and others are still pending but the ratio of one out of five is certain to hold up. Wisconsin's mandatory 60 day cooling off period changed the minds of at least seven plaintiffs last year but, according to Pankratz, it doesn't mean a thing. Five couples who dropped proceedings in 1967 were back in 1968 and he feels certain of seeing several of '69's so-called reconciled couples back in I970.
Wisconsin is a tough state to get a divorce in and if either party decides to contest the action it could be a lot tougher. If a wife decides to serve walking papers on her husband and he doesn't bother to answer the complaint, the action is set into motion by default. If, however, the husband isn't about to let his dearly beloved go quite that easily and founds up a few witnesses to verify his excellent character, her chances of being a free woman diminish considerably. And if said husbands get in the witness chair and fervently professes innocence, faithfulness and heartfelt love all in one breath he can gamble the ranch on emerging victorious. The same tactic, of course, can be used by the wife.
The trouble, is most people, once they've reached the complaint receiving stage, no longer give a damn.
On the day of this interview Pankratz had just talked with an elderly man whose 45-year-old marriage was about to be terminated. Neither he nor his wife was in any mood for counseling. All the man worried about was getting his fair share of the property settlement. Once that was settled, he said, she could go her way and he would gladly go his. He had had enough of her harping to last a lifetime.
"I should try to reconcile that pair?" Pankratz asked wryly. "Both have their minds made up and they're certainly old enough to know what they want. There is no other man or woman in the case, here, but both parties are bored to tears with each other."
The grounds, naturally, were "cruel and inhuman treatment."
This standard grievance doesn't always work. In one celebrated case the wife asked for a divorce because her husband was surly, stingy, abusive, mean, and an all around rat. She cited one instance of petty cruelty after another. It was-an impressive list.
The judge listened attentively before asking, "I suppose he's been like this all his life?"
The beleaguered wife nodded, "Judge," she said brokenly, "he was like that the day I met him."
"Case dismissed," said the judge firmly. "If he was like that the day you met him, you knew what you were letting yourself in for."
The couple eventually were divorced but only after he sued her for reasons which remain confidential.
The moral of this story is if you knowingly marry a rat you're stuck with that rat unless he decides to let you out of the trap. It's only when your benevolent Dr. Jekyll turns into an inhuman Mr. Hyde that you have a case. Women who marry naturally taciturn men have no reason to later complain about lack of communication any more than women who received a black eye on their first date can cite brutality as a reason for divorce.
If, however, your spouse has always been a gentle, lovable, jovial, give-you-the-shirt-offhis-back type and all of a sudden becomes an irritable, sullen, miserly, gone-all-night stranger, you have strong "cruel and inhuman" grounds. If he comes home with the latest shade of Estee Lauder on the permapress shirt collar you spent half the morning ironing—your grounds are even stronger. And, if he bandies your name around bars in HER presence—he'd better watch out—he's had it. (Unless he can come up with his sympathetic witnesses and sad tale in court as mentioned before.)
Adultery is rarely given as grounds for a divorce because it is difficult to prove, messy to live with, and against the law. The sovereign state of Wisconsin takes a dim view of adultery and, if proven guilty, an adulterer (or ess) can be sent to jail for three years (this happened to one man some time ago.) Because of the state's old-fashioned outlook on modern life women who hate a man enough to call him every other name under the sun refuse to call him an out and out adulterer. It's hard to get alimony when your breadwinner is behind bars.
Divorces are rarely "clean"—even when the grounds presented are innocuous. Pankratz says, "No divorce is granted unless specific complaints are listed. Airing dirty linen in court isn't pleasant but if a person wants a divorce badly enough, he or she has to pull all stops. Breaking up a marriage is a serious undertaking which no one should consider lightly."
The true victims of broken marriages are the children. They are the ones Judge Stephan worries about and are the reason why he calls parents selfish.
"Too many young people today get married with the idea that each can pursue his own interests without interference from the other," Stephan said grimly. "Fellows want to keep on going out with the boys and their wives get even by joining clubs, coffee klatching with the girls or going out on the town alone. This is O.K. until the babies start coming. Then, one parent, usually the mother, HAS to stay home with the poor child who, half the time, isn't wanted in the first place, and the fights start.
"It takes mature people to make a good, solid home for their family in our free-wheeling society today," Stephan continued. "It's a quality I find noticeably lacking in most divorce-seekers."
Pankratz blames our affluent society for the zooming divorce rate. Money buys many things—not the least of them being keys to nice, quiet, out-of-the-way motels and trips to other cities. When the pocketbook is flat it's a lot easier eating macaroni and cheese at home with the wife and kids than to go in hock escorting one's paramour to a secluded restaurant.
Both Stephan and Pankratz agree on one thing—the compatibility of a couple depends first and foremost on a good sexual relationship. If you have that at home there is no compelling reason to bed-hop. A boorish husband or frigid wife are bound to find rough going no matter who they marry and if they unsuspectingly marry each other—God help them!
That's where family counseling or psychiatric treatment plays an important role in preventing what could be a catastrophic divorce rise. Pankratz says the services of Theodore E. Bauch, the Brown county Guidance Clinic Counselor and a psychiatric social worker, are available to Door county residents at a minimal charge (or, free if you can't afford that) and countless couples have benefited from his guidance.
Priests and ministers have (saved other shaky marriages by adroitly counseling troubled parishioners. Frank talk mixed with down-to-earth advice has kept more than one battling twosome from declaring all out war.
All in all Door county's divorce record, while not enviable is better than average. No marriage is made in heaven and few are free from marital wranglings. If the 80 per cent of us who are still left to carry the torch of togetherness can do so with as glowing a torch we carried while single—Judge Stephan could close his divorce court tomorrow.
[author not stated]
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive