NO BALM FOR BLACKMAIL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 112, 14 May 1935, Page 6

NO BALM FOR BLACKMAIL.

New York Stain has joined Indiana in outlawing civil notions to recover pecuniary damages for broach of promise to marry, alienation of affections and similar charges (says the "Christian Science Monitor" under the above heading). In both States women urged passage of the bills. And rightly. .Such support is consistent with* their efforts to secure lentil equality for their own sex, find with their labour in behalf of *7>eial justice. No doubt the original intent of the laws thus abolished was to provide genuinely-needed protection. But those who opposed the Indiana and Now York bills on tin; ground Umt they struck directly at the rights of women failed to explain why women any more, than men should 710w possess such right. At best it has been a legislated right, and one no longer consistent with the changed kgal status of the sex. Women now have the legal right to collect their own wages, enter into business contracts, own property in their own name, and in general to provide for themselves independently of men. One way they can prove their equality is by not asking for the kind of protection breach of promise laws are meant to give. So-called "heart-balm" has too long and too often been the reward of blackmailers and the wage of shyster lawyers. A matrimonial racket it has grown to be, and most women will be glad to give one more prick to the racketeer's , balloon—glad not to have their traditional dofeneelessness thus traded upon. Aβ Mrs. Roosevelt said, "I don't think anyone who was really hurt would over sue," and the legal excursions of "gold diggers," while a boon to the sensational Press, have been a source of humiliation to'women in general.