N.Z. Mothers’ Union Takes Own Line

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31764, 22 August 1968, Page 2

N.Z. Mothers’ Union Takes Own Line

The New Zealand Mothers’ Union has been eased out of the world-wide parent body because it will not conform to the old, exclusive rule of membership which debars divorced women.

“But we are not downhearted,” said Mrs W. A. Pierre, president of the Mothers’ Union of the Diocese of Christchurch, yesterday. “We feel very strongly that we have been guided to amending this rule, so that we can reach out to all mothers.”

When the Dominion council of the New Zealand Mothers’ Union meets in November, the method of implementing the change of policy on membership will be decided.

“We may declare ourselves an autonomous body; we may even change the organisation’s name. But we won’t know the majority opinion on these matters till then.” she said.

Mrs Pierre, who returned home on Sunday, was sent as a delegate to the recent conference of the World-Wide Mothers’ Union in London from a fund specially raised by Mothers’ Union branches. Young Wives’ groups and other members of the Church of England in Christchurch. Onus Put On N.Z. The central council In London held the opinion that New Zealand had automatically put itself out of the international union by refusing to abide by the membership rule. But a core of for-ward-looking English delegates firmly supported the New Zealanders’ views.

“They want us to remain part of the parent body in some way,” Mrs Pierre said. A commission will be set up in London to investigate the entire constitution of the Mothers’ Union to restate its aims, its rules of membership, and its "methods of working effectively in the modern world. It will also look at ways of retaining links with the break-away New Zealand and Canadian unions.

“I hope conditions for reassociation, acceptable to us, will be found,” she said.

Wider Membership

The New Zealand Mothers’ Union agreed two years ago that to be an effective Christian organisation it must admit to full membership:— Divorced women who had not remarried and had, therefore, not lost communicant status in the Church of England. Women who had remarried after divorce, or had married a divorced man and had subsequently been admitted or readmitted to Holy Communion, by the bishop of any diocese in the Church of the Province of New Zealand.

They sent a resolution to this effect to the central council of the World-Wide Mothers’ Union for discussion

at the 1968 conference. It was defeated by 270 votes to 83, with seven abstentions. A resolution seeking autonomy for New Zealand proposed by Mrs J. T. Holland, Dominion president of the New Zealand union, and seconded by Mrs Pierre, a Dominion vice-president, was also lost.

Though there was a strong

body of opinion in support of New Zealand’s stand on membership, the majority of speakers claimed that if divorced women were admitted they would weaken the union’s witness to the permanence of marriage. They also felt it would undermine the work of the union in the mission fields.

“In actual fact, if a bishop of a missionary diocese considers a woman who has become a Christian would be helped by a mothers’ union branch, he may admit her to full membership whatever her marital status,” Mrs Pierre said.

The New Zealand union has been seriously concerned about the membership rule for about five years. But in England the matter came up for open discussion only a few months ago. “English delegates at the conference had not been given the opportunity to explore fully the opinions of their own members,” she said. “Australian delegates were also divided in their views.” The Mothers’ Union was founded in England in 1876 by Mrs Mary Sumner with only two objects—to help mothers bring up their children in the Christian way of life, and to bring mothers together to pray for spiritual strength to do so, she explained. Many Anomalies “Sixteen years later, when divorces began to increase, another object was introduced —to uphold the sanctity of marriage. This in itself was good. But sanctity became synonymous only with the permanence of marriage in the Mothers' Union, and this meant excluding women who were associated with divor’e in any way in their own marriages. It is obvious that this attitude was full of anomalies,” said Mrs Pierre.

The restricted membership had, in the past, damaged the image of the organisation in New Zealand and had probably been most frustrating to parish clergy in their pastoral work, she added. “The Mothers’ Union is not putting pressure on the Church to remarry divorced people; that is the Church's own business,” she emphasised. “We merely want to be able to accept any woman who needs what the Mothers’ Union has to offer—the support of our prayers and loving concern for Christian family life. We also feel that women whose marriages have failed for any reason have much to offer other women, from the breadth of their own experiences.” The Mothers’ Union had the solid support of New Zealand bishops and clergy in its stand, said Mrs Pierre.