Missing Wives?

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31144, 22 August 1966, Page 12

Missing Wives?

Sir, —While glancing through my copy of the “New Zealand Pocket Digest of Statistics, 1966,” 1 was amazed to discover that this country had approximately 850 more married men than married women. As widowed, divorced and separated persons are listed separately, this situation seems peculiar. Has bigamy become fashionable and morally acceptable, or has some unconsidered factor spirited away our wives? The question is, where have all the ladies gone?—Yours, etc., LONELY HEART.

August 16, 1966. [The deputy Government Statistician (Mr E. A. Harris) replies: “Exact correspondence between the numbers of married males and married females counted at the time of a census of population is not to be expected because of the absence of some marital partners overseas, both those of native-born New Zealanders on holiday or business and those of recent immigrants whose families have not yet joined them. An unknown additional part of the discrepancy might also be due to inconsistent specification of marital status by separated marriage partners. Your correspondent might have noticed that there were at the 1961 census 1400 more legally separated women than men.”]