LAW FOR WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 10, 12 January 1934, Page 9

LAW FOR WOMEN.

An Australian judge in the General Sessions mentioned one respect in which women have the advantage of men. It was- a very old doctrine of the law, he said, that when an offence _ was committed by a married woman in the presence of" her husband, she was presumed to have committed it under the coercion of the husband. Her excuse, in other words, wae that the husband was presumed to be responsible for her offence. "Wo have heard," he added, of the efforts of women during the last 50 years to achieve equality of sex, but this is one respect in which the women have the advantage of us men. In the eyes of the law, a husband is presumed to have coerced his wife when a crime is committed in hie presence, but it does not work the other way round. The ■woman is never presumed to have coerced her husband, although she may do it at other times." In the case under notice, the judge directed the jury to acquit the woman, who was charged with perjury, ae the evidence showed that the woman signed the document which was the banis of the charge in the presence of her husband.