Married & Burned

GETTING A DIVORCE--Isabel Drummond--Knopf ($5).

It was St. Paul's opinion that it is better to marry than to burn. If you have taken his advice and been burned to boot, Lawyer Drummond's book may show you how to save something from the fire. Some preachers think U. S. marriage is in a bad way. Most lawyers know U. S. divorce is. Because there are no Federal divorce laws in the U. S., because one State's legal meat is another State's poison, not even an expert can work out every divorce problem in his head.

As introduction to her thorny subject Lawyer Drummond tells the legal fairy tale of ''Col. Beauregard'' who. simply by acting like a Southern gentleman of the old school, found himself technically guilty of perjury, abandonment, adultery, seduction, bigamy and rape. Part One summarizes the history of the law of marriage & divorce, tells all about annulment, grounds for divorce, alimony, costs, divorce outside the U. S.; ends with a disturbing chapter on conflicting divorce laws, the uncertain validity of many divorces. Part Two gives a summary of divorce laws in each State, in the popular divorce mills of France, Mexico, Cuba, Sweden. If you want to find out in what State divorce is cheapest, where it can be had most quickly, where a man can get alimony, when a woman cannot, when a divorce is not a divorce, when parents are deprived of the custody of the children--these and many another nice question are answered in Getting a Divorce. In South Carolina, though you can get an annulment or a separation, you cannot be divorced. In Maine "spouses are bound indissolubly together in the bonds of mutual infidelity." According to an Iowa decision, "profanity bears much more proximately on the impairment of a woman's health than upon that of a man." In Tennessee "mere acerbity of temper, occasional reproaches, or rude language on the part of the husband toward the wife . . . do not constitute a sufficient ground for divorce.''

Lawyer Drummond has kept sane in the midst of her bewildering subject by keeping a tight grip on her sense of humor. She calls attention to a Kentucky case in which "a separation due to the wife's refusal to cohabit at all with her spouse is metaphorically described as 'an unfortunate failure to guide the marital craft into the port of happiness.' " If you like cider you may be pleased to learn that habitual use of it, not amounting to habitual drunkenness, is not grounds for divorce in New Hampshire.

Isabel Drummond has been a teacher, business executive, public relations counsel, newshawk, editor, is now a Philadelphia lawyer. She started practice before she graduated from law school, was soon made woman counselor for Philadelphia's Legal Aid Bureau.

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