UNTYING THE KNOT

Evening Star, Issue 17369, 3 June 1920, Page 6

UNTYING THE KNOT

e Mr Justice M'Cardic, speaking at a lecture given by Mr F. T. Barrington Ward, | K.C., on "'Toe Legal Position of ihe 1 Modern Husband," remarked that he had ; latek- been thinkina a great deal about : the question whether the tie of marriage might be diwjived on other grounds than those that now exist, and whether divorce, whi.h touched the fabric of society, should be left to be decided by ecclesiastical ] tradition or by the supreme considerations I of national welfare and national expedij ency. He honed that those v.-ho took part in the society movements of the future woukl not forget' two things in the interests of many thousands of children born oi;t of wedlock—whether thero ought not to be, as in the days of Rome, and as there was ia South Africa to-day i and in Scotland, the power of legitima- ! tion by subsequent marriage. Ho hoped I to see at no far distant date the power I whe.eby a mw or woman could take a son I or daughter, by a system of legal adop- ' tion, from some of the many httlo ones now scattered to-day, without lawful parents, throughout the country. Mr Barrington Ward, K.C., quoted and explained' vario is directions in which the law operated towards a man and his wife, some of which were applicable to ono part_v. but not to the o'her. A man had the right of consortion with his wife, and one privilege left to him was that, whoever did it for him, the husband must pay for the burial of his wife, though. the ladies had no such duty—or privilege. A husband hud no right to control the freedom of movement of his wife, and no right to arrest her. A wife could sue her husband in respect to her separate property, but the husband had no correlative light against her property. Speak- ; ing of wedding presente, he re- ! marked that he wonkl not mind bringing I a serie3 of actions, preferentially in a com- , mercial court, to determine what the righto were. The property would be looked at from the relationship or character' of the donor, or the character of the gift and the circumstances in which it was given.