DINED ALONE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 213, 8 September 1944, Page 6

DINED ALONE

HUSBAND'S STORY

JUDGE CRITICISES WIFE

Holding that it was abundantly clear that there had been established a case of constructive desertion on the part of the wife from March, 1940, Mr. Justice Blair, in a reserved decision granted a decree nisi to Albert Percival Watkins, grocer, of Auckland, who, in June last, petitioned for divorce from Patricia Helen Watkins. The parties were married in April, 1938, and there was one child of the marriage, born in May, 1939. In reviewing the evidence, his Honor said it was intended that after marriage there would be a week's honeymoon at Brown's Bay, but after two days the wife said she wanted to go home to her mother as her mother would be missing her, and she, the respondent, Had never been away from her mother before. The parties then went back to the mother's house, and the husband rented two rooms from the mother at 15/ a week. The husband was earning £5 a week, and he allowed the wife all but 5/ a week of it, the wife paying the rent and providing the food.

i "Stranger In Home" ! After four or five months the i respondent shifted into her mother's j bedroom, and had never since then i returned to her husband's room, i "For some few months after the constructive separation just detailed commenced," said his Honor, "the wife would still come to the part of the house rented by the husband and j spend the evening with him, but even this association then ceased, and, to ' put the matter shortly, the attitude then adopted by the wife and her mother was to treat the petitioner i as a source of income, inasmuch as ' the wife always demanded the lion's ! share of the petitioner's earnings. I But in other respects he was a virtual I stranger in the house. The position | developed that the wife did not even ! have meals with him. He had to get his own breakfast, bread and butter being all he had, and, except at weekends, was always absent all day at work, and took a cut lunch with him. The wife had her meals In the kitchen with her mother and brothers. His ' evening meals were brought on a tray to him in his part of the house. The petitioner was seldom permitted to see the baby which was born some thirteen months after marriage. Driven From House "The wife and her mother ultimately drove him out of the house. They did not like him, but they did like the money he was paying. After he left the house he paid his wife £2 5/ a week for herself and the child, and for two years he continued calling every week to see the child. In October, 1941, the petitioner met another woman, and in March, 1942, he was cited as co-respondent in a divorce case brought by the husband of that woman. Tne adultery was admitted. "The impression left upon my mind is that the wife's only interest in her husband was a financial one, and her attitude, and the attitude of her mother, has always been that they were entitled to enjoy the funds he supplied but were under no obligation to give anything in return. It is a matter of surprise to me that he put up with the studied injustice put upon him for so long as he did," said his Honor. "I consider that the treatment he received at their hands was such as to make it by no means difficult for him to succumb to the temptation of kindness from another woman." .. ~ . , In granting a decree nisi the judge made an order for respondent to have interim custody of the child, with reasonable and proper access to the child by petitioner. Mr. Robinson appeared for petitioner, and Mr. Schramm for the respondent.