SUITABLE HOME

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 88, 14 April 1945, Page 6

SUITABLE HOME

BUT NOT WITH "IN LAWS"

DECISION BY JUDGE

•Petitioning for restitution of conjugal rights by his wife, Edna Isabel Atkins, a returned soldier, Clarence Claude Atkins, said they were married in 1937 and had two children. With his wife's consent he enlisted in 1940, and the same, year he went overseas. In 1943 his wife's letters got cool in tone, and when he wrote asking for an explanation she sent him a separation agreement she wanted him to sign. He wrote, saying he would decide when he got home. He returned in November last on furlough, and the wife declined to live with him, but gave no reason. He was living with his mother, and there was a good home there for his wife. '4, ; /

His Honor said he would make a decree, but it was necessary for the petitioner to find another home for her to go to. He would never, he said, compel a spouse, man or woman, to live with "in laws." It would be quite a proper thing for a wife or a husband to object to live with a mother-in-law, and, consequently, he held it was improper for the Court to order a spouse to go to a home with "in laws." He was adamant on that.

Mr. Aekins said the difficulty was that petitioner was a farmer who .had approached the Rehabilitation Board for a farm, and he could not at' the moment name a home other than his mother's.

His Honor made a decree directing respondent to return within 28 days, at an address to be inserted later, when the petitioner had a suitable home.