TRAIL OF MYSTERY

Grey River Argus, 13 June 1935, Page 3

TRAIL OF MYSTERY

‘ 1 PROFESSIONAL ’ ’ BIGAMISTS GROWING EVIL IN BRITAIN. During recent years in Britain there have been, on an average, about 500 prosechtions for bigamy annually. The number is on the increase, and representatives from the several departments concerned have engaged upon an insuiry with a view to suggesting means by which the growth in this class of offence might be reduced if not stopped entirely. A large? number of those who the law in this respect do so in ignorance. They are mostly women who, not having heard anything of deserting husbands for many years, believe they are at liberty to marry again. This, of course, is not the case. Recently a judge had before him a woman charged with bigamy, and made some caustic remarks upon the injustice she suffered. Her children left her and her children, and she heard nothing of him for over 15 years. The wife married again, and. very shortly afterwards, her legal husband turned up. informed the police*. and the woman was prosecuted. SINISTER SIDE OF BIGAMY. There is, however, a much more sinister side to the offence. Official facts and figures now under consideration show that the office of the marriage registrar is a place of which criminal use is made by “professional bigamists,” as a famous judge described them. Nothing is easier than for two persons to go through a marriage ceremony at a registrar’s office. Perjury is often committed by the bridegroom fffr financial considerations. Two men. recently convicted of bigamy, confessed, in one case*, to eight such marriages, and in the other to six. The amounts of which they had defrauded their victims totalled over £lO, 000.

In a large number of the cases under reX.cw a trail of misery has been left —women robbed of their money, involved in financial obligations?, and. worst of all. bearing children to men who have cheated and defrauded them. A variety of interesting suggestions are now being considered. One is that no marriage shall be solemnised either at a registry office or in a church, without production of proof that the parties are lawfully entitled to enter into the contract. That proof, it is suggested, might take the form of a birth certificate, endorsed by the appropriate authorities. A marriage entry would be entered iq.on the back after the ceremony, and only upon the production of evidence of the death or divorce of one of. the parties could a subsequent marriage of the person affected be permitted. There is also under consideration the

desirability of so amending the law that the absence of one spouse from the other for a special period, without knowledge of his, or her, whereabout.-’ should, upon due notice being advertised, entitle either party to marry again without the risk' of prosecution for bigamy