Metal In Belts.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

Metal In Belts.

Two belts of Moka Krush, a suede - finished leather, use metal accents for daytime or formal afternoon wear. At the top a dressy cocktail type is done in green with a multicoloured stone-studded round buckle. The lower one is a novelty with the buckle inspired by a musical motif, working out the wearer's initials in clefs and notes. This u es oxydised silver finish.

motives of their own. If this were not so, the New Zealand Nationality of Married Women Act (103-4-35) would never have been placed on the statute book in its present emasculated form necessitating application for restoration of lost nationality within six months of marriage to an alien, and leaving all those women who were married to aliens prior to the passing of the Act just as they were, there being no provision for their having their nationality restored while the marriage endures. Only death of the husband or divorce can give them back their lost British status. When we remember that grave breach of the law 011 the part of the husband or the exigencies of war cause the loss of naturalisation certificate with a cessation of all rights granted through it, it will easily be seen a woman in such a case lias but meagre security against onerous hardship.

A Vestige of Victorianism. This grievous disability imposed on married women is a hangover from the mid-Victorian legislation against feminine citizenship and partakes of the ageold conception of women as chattels of men. But our passport regulations betray another anomaly, for any married woman applying to this necessary adjunct to overseas travel must first obtain the consent of her husband. We are informed that in the event of this consent being refused (and there are known to be such cases) the wife can have resort to the Court —small comfort this to the woman short of both time and money. One has it pointed out that this obligation is mutual, for the husband must ask his wife's consent to depart for foreign parts, but the fact that marriage makes a woman dependent, and it consequently is right that a- married man should provide for his dependents, renders his case entirely different. It may be argued that freedom to travel overseas without let or hindrance would facilitate the breaking up of homes, but this argument falls to the ground when it is pointed out that a woman can bring about domestic disruption merely by leaving to live in the next street. Whichever way it is looked at this restriction must be regarded as an unwarranted interference with the liberty of the woman-citizen. It is one of those encroachments 011 our freedom which tend to creep in when watchfulness is diverted or when apathy prevails. Neither lack of vigilance nor alertness should be allowed to stay the course of women's progress away from masculine domination. "None are free till all arc free," and those unaffected by such irritating and burdensome legislation to-day may wake sometime to the fact thai; while they remained apathetic and unobservant further encroachments were made .011 hard-won rights. For women, as for nations, the price of liberty is constant Ugilance.