Deserted Wives

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 12

Deserted Wives

Sir,—lt does not take much research to. see that it is the immature husband or wife who deserts his or her family. The mature person knows he has a responsibility to the family he helped to produce. A mature couple, deciding that life together is intolerable and that It would be more honest to part, willingly share family responsibilities. one providing unnaid work, the other money, both making sacrifices. Deserting husbands, accustomed to the easy way, become bitter, blaming others rather than facing their own inadequacies. when asked for allmony. The wife who chooses to raise the family alone rather than also desert them; is forgoing a career. She will need courage, tenacity,'and physical endurance. She will often work a 16-hour or 18hour day (unpaid). Her sports, interests, social life,' and often her health will be sacrificed; and now deserting husbands want to add breadwinning.—Yours, etc., A. R. ANTILL. July 3, 1969. ) Sir,—l have never before read so many self-pitying comments. I am a deserted wife with one child. I have been on my own for four years, and every day I thank the Lord that I live in New Zealand. Nowhere else in the world would I receive enough money from the Government to enable me to stay home and care for my child. It is not easy, I know, but it is not impossible. I would rather be a deserted wife in New Zealand than a mother in Vietnam.—Yours, etc., N. J. HUMPHRIES. July 4, 1969.

Sir,—l agree with much of what your correspondents have written, including M. W. Wright. I have statistics, taken from court divorce actions with desertion as the grounds, for the first six months of this year—husbands who desert, 44.4 ner cent; wives who desert, 55.6 per cent. Furthermore there is legislation to help these unfortunate women, which is upheld by the courts: There is no legislation to help husbands in distress. There is no legislation restricting or prohibiting persons from full or part-time emnloyment, male or female. These facts are inescapable. The law is heavily biased tn favour of the mother. This is outrageously unjust and I know many fathers who are seething with resentment at this inequity. —Yours, etc., JM. July 4, 1969. Sir,—lf our courts are to be influenced by the banding together of husbands wishing to shed the responsibilities associated with marriage—as it was ordained, for the protection of children—then we must expect the emergence of a new race of children, reared, without fathers, by working mothers. These deprived children may then look forward to a few years grace before being expected to support “Mother” as well as families of their own. Undoubtedly this would release their fathers from their “slavery and fear of imprisonment.” It might also allow the continuation of the little “extras” for second wives, which in many cases they were no doubt receiving and enjoying before the first marriage ended. Second wives have made their own choice. Children do not have this privilege. Are they to carry the burden of a broken home alone to free their fathers?— Yours, etc., SOCIAL EQUALITY FOR CHILDREN. July 3, 1969.

Sir,—A. Greig, like many husbands desirous of “starting again,” considers it slavery for a new wife to be employed, but quite just that the woman who has already borne him children, should

be compelled to subsidise her “maintenance” by employment while rearing them, and then to pick up the threads of a career when they are grown. If she is not an Amazon capable of caring for children adequately, while simultaneously competing successfully with full-time employees, then it Is she, and not the second wife, who can look forward to poverty and loneliness when she is left with only the very limited support she can expect from her husband, once their children have turned 16. Children raised without benefit of a father might, of course, as "Jim W.” suggests, later take on “mum” as well as their own young families. —Yours, etc., WITH A LITTLE BIT OF LUCK.

July 3, 1969. (This correspondence is now closed-—Ed, “The Press.”]