Act of God?

Is motherhood an act of God? This question, involving all the profundities of metaphysics, faith and physiology might well give pause to anyone, however learned. The answer YES would surely affront countless atheists, agnostics. The answer NO would just as surely anger multitudes of the pious. Yet several men were actually confronted with this question last week and expected to make a public reply.

Actress Helen Hayes, wife of Playwright Charles MacArthur, lately withdrew from the play Coquette, then on the road, saying: "I am going to have a baby" (TIME, Sept. 16). Producer Jed Harris ordered the play closed without notice. Five members of the cast at once demanded extra salary, said that Mr. Harris had violated the rules of Actors' Equity Association.

The question depended on the Equity contract clause stating: "The management is not responsible for fire, strikes, or an act of God." Mr. Harris declared the expected MacArthur baby was certainly "an act of God." The protesting actors said it was no such thing.

Equity arbitrators then met, discussed God and his acts. Appalled by the cosmic dimensions of their dilemma, they adjourned, wordless. But at their meeting last week they were so fortunate as to find a way out. They announced that Mr. Harris owed his actors two weeks' salary. Their reason: Nothing in the contracts prevented him from employing a substitute for Actress Hayes.