FEW TIES BROKEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 163, 12 July 1945, Page 3

FEW TIES BROKEN

FOR WOMEN

MARRIAGES TO AMERICANS

POSITION IN DOMINION

P.A. WELLINGTON, this day. In only a very small proportion of marriages between United States servicemen and New Zealand women was divorce wanted.

This statement was made by the United States authorities in Wellington when the cable received from Brisbane yesterday stating that hundreds of Australian wives of United States servicemen had been deserted, married under false names or divorced by their husbands in such a way that the divorce was not legally recognised in Australia, was referred to them. It was added that similar cases to those alleged to have occurred io Australia were not known to them.

Eight or nine hundred wives and children of American servicemen had left New Zealand for the United States or were ready to go, it was stated. There were more than 100 children. Only about half a dozen couples had obtained, or wanted to, obtain divorces so far as the American authorities here were aware. This did not include engagements, breaches of which by both American men and New Zealand women had come under notice. Cases of New Zealanders being unable to trace their husbands were not known. There were husbands who did not reply to their wives' letters, but the wives were receiving their allotments.