ETHICS OF MATRIMONY.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16848, 31 May 1920, Page 2

ETHICS OF MATRIMONY.

A PERIL TO THE STATE. (from orr. own cokkesfojtdext.) LONDON. March 25. During the hearing of an action for broach of promise, Mr Justice Darling made a remarkable pronouncement on unfit marriages, and what he said should receive the attention of all interested in social reform. The casa was one in which an exsoldier defendant pleaded that, owing to tho effect of a wound, he was unfit to marry, and the Judge agreed with the defence, awarding one farthing damages, without costs. He declared that it should be an implied term when a ccupb proposed to marry that they should be able to do so without danger to their lives or of having idiot children. "A great many people now," said the Judgo, ''regard liiairiage as a meie trifle and bigamy as only a little more serious. Ido not take that view. Marliags in this country is still normally lor the lives of the two parties. {jV course, I know that is not always the case, because of the existence of another department ill this building— (laughter)—and oven a contract lor a year is sometimes as much as it is good i'or. (Laughter.) However that Ir.ay bo, marriago is a very serious undertaking, and even if the law i s altered it will remain a serious undertaking, because it generally results in tho birth of children, do what the law will. "These* children ought to be considered by the law and by tho Stale, even before they are born!" A marriage of this kind would probably result in the birth of children who would be practically useless and a burden upon tho State. If the plaintiff had been a sensible woman, she "would have said the young man dceided upon the best thing in refusing to marry, because if she had married him her life would have been a continual misery. Ho (continued the Judge) did not find that marriage would have endangered tho defendant's life, but he thought his children would have been wretched, and possibly, as timo went by, a danger to tho State? "Day by day," continued Mr Justice Darling, "ono sees this sort of thing. Directly they commit a crime the nature of their parents is immediately laid before tho jury, and the iury are as>ked to say they are not responsible for their actions. If marriages of this kind aro to be encouraged, I cannot help thinking there will be more of these people than there aro now, and already, in my judgment, there are quite enough.'' He did not find that tho defendant was sufficiently ill to justify his reftisa' to marry, nor did he think the plaintiff agreed to release him from performing his promise to marry. Therefore, he had to consider what damage tho plaintiff had suffered. The defendant was not a man who had made a fortune out of the war. All he got out of it was to be wounded in all parts of his body, and he had for two and a half years been in hospital after hospital. Therefore, the conclusion the Judge came to was that the plaintiff had lost nothing of any value at all, and that she was very well out of it. "I do not think," his Lordship said, "that it was to this woman's p-ivato advantage, nor to the public advantage, that this action should havo b°en brought, and I think that, in the public interest, such actions ought to be discouraged." ■ During the hearing of the case counsel for the defence contended that his client was justified in refusing to marry by good sense, good law, and good morals. Counsel for the plaintiff replied that it might as well be argued that a highlystrung poet should be deprive.} of marriage, because ho might pass on his nervous temperament to his children. (Laughter.) The Judge: Do poets begot posts? (Laughter.) Counsel: I do not know that. But they might pass on a highly-strung disposition'. The Judge: I suppose a good poet begets a worse poot, and he begets still a worse one, until at last, in the sixth degree, you got the modern poet. (Laughter.) Mr Warren (for the plaintiff) said it might also br> said that a consciontious objector should not be allowed to marry, because ho would create conscientious objectors. The Judge: If applied to politics I should think it would be snid that, nobody oueht to many who did not belong to the Coalition. (Laughter.) Mr Warren: That I should assent to, as it would lead to propagation of a race of immoral people. (l aughter.)