Marriage contracts proposed

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32838, 11 February 1972, Page 5

Marriage contracts proposed

(N.Z. Press Association/ I AUCKLAND, February 10. A marriage contract in which both partners stipulate property and financial arrangements before marriage is proposed by the Married Women’s Association of New Zealand. Provisions for the support and education of children, and stipulations for a wife’s allowance, perhaps on a percentage basis, could also be drawn into the contract, the association says. “You don’t go into an apprenticeship contract blindly,” said the secretary of the association (Mrs R. Fletcher) “and so why go into marriage full of romantic ideas? “We feel that a lot of women marry impractically—full of romantic love. If things go wrong, under the contract system, both partners would have a share of what they had contributed,” she said. The association was started in 1967 by Dr Anne Morgan, a specialist in the care of women and children, and today has about 70 members. Dr Morgan is the association’s president.

Association membership is at present virtually confined to the Auckland area. The basic work of the organisation is to promote recognition of the wife in law as an equal, financial partner in marriage, and thereby to strengthen the family as a unit.