A VICTORY FOR WOMEN.

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 30 September 1933, Page 4

A VICTORY FOR WOMEN.

The Marriage Amendment Bill, which has passed its first '.reading in Parliamenit, brings promise of a reform which has been long -overdue in this country. The Bill ,proposes to raise the minimum marriage age for both sexes to sixteen years, the .existing piLainum being 12 years for girls an'd 14 years for boys. This is not a matter which affects many people, but .nevertheless the reform means the remedying of a .state of affairs which has been too long a blot on the social code of the Dominion. It can be safely anticipated that the measure will go through, foir it is difficult to imagine any member, of the House opposing it. In the past the difficulty has been to move any Government to the point of launching a (Bill, for reasons which need not be gone into now but which .reflect no credit oin the .successive' administrations of .the past which have side-stepped this issue. Credit for instituting the .reform wholly belongs to tli.e members of various women’s organisations which have refused, over a long period of years, to give 'successive governments any peace in this connection. The agitation for the raising of the minimum marriage age was one of the “ha'rdy annuals” of the annual conferences of the National Council of Women during the years when there were few other women's organisations in the field. In recent years the agitation has been •taken up by other organisations of women which have sprung into existence. The passage of the Bill now before ‘the House will forever remove the reproach, hitherto deserved, that in this ■one particular New Zealand lagged sadly behind' most other parts of the world.