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Budapest, April 8, 1918
Dear Professor,
Our main matter stands as follows: According to our laws, divorce is a state matter and not a religious one, just like marriage and birth. But the Hungarian laws, unfortunately, are almost based on the Catholic standpoint and dissolve a marriage only 1) if both parties are in agreement and 2) if there are “grounds for divorce.” Usually the “unfaithful abandonment” of the other party to the marriage is used as such grounds. The fact of abandonment exists when a husband (wife) leaves the other party and stays away from him/her for more than six months. These six months will expire for us in a few weeks. Then it depends on Pálos's grace as to whether—or not—he grants his wife a divorce. I fear that out of revenge he will consent to it either not at all or under burdensome conditions. Frau G. will naturally take upon herself the odium of “unfaithful abandonment” and along with that the “guilt” for dissolving the marriage, along with the consequences that follow from that (waiving alimony, etc.); but Pálos will make an attempt somehow to demand Frau G.'s dowry as a prize (even though he is well-to-do himself); perhaps on the pretext of getting, that is to say, securing, this money (80,000 crowns) for the two daughters. But Frau G. would naturally not like to give up this property.—Another possibility, which should be taken into account in view of his vengefulness, is that Pálos will ask for the divorce on grounds of his wife's “unfaithfulness” (incidentally, he has to be the complainant in any event; Frau G. has no legally sufficient grounds for that). According to some paragraph or other in Hungarian common law, the woman may not marry the man with whom she has deceived her husband (but the applicability of this is probably contingent upon the court's bringing proof of adultery).—
If Pálos doesn't want to, he can't be forced to divorce.
In the meantime, the news of my imminent marriage, with all significant details, has been made know