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Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32629, 10 June 1971, Page 6

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Criticism called sad

(N.Z. Press Association/ HAMILTON, June 9. Criticism by the Hamilton branch of the National Council of Women of Dr Fraser MacDonald’s description of women in the home as “slaves” was yesterday described by Dr MacDonald as sad. Dr MacDonald, who is superintendent of Kingseat Psychiatric Hospital in Auckland, recently described the situation of young married women in New Zealand as alarming—pointing out that there were twice as many women in mental hospitals as men, three to four times as many women psychiatric outpatients, and three times as many responsible for suicide attempts. The Hamilton branch’s meeting last week approved a statement which said: “Admittedly there are genuine cases where stress and strain have proved too great for some women, but for every such one, there are hundreds of happily married women who are rearing their children in the best traditions, and who regard happily married life as a vocation.” Dr MacDonald’s utterances were causing much ill-feeling and could do much harm, the statement said.

Dr MacDonald replied: “Something is wrong with the demands of a marriage at the present time, and muzzling me won’t make the problem go away. “If they are happily married as they say they are. then it is sad they won’t do anything constructive to help the ones who are not.

“If my comments on the matter are dangerous, then marriage must be a pretty fragile state,” he said. Dr MacDonald said that a community reassessment of the stresses and strains which must be going on in marriage should be undertaken. “If I had said twice as

many women suffer froir tuberculosis as men, something would be done,” he

■n 1 said. “But they want to hide 2- depression and anxiety away ie|as if it doesn’t exist.”