MORE DIVORCES THAN EVER

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 4 March 1935, Page 6

MORE DIVORCES THAN EVER

LOWEST BIRTHRATE 706 GIRLS GET MARRIED AT 16 From Our “Own Correspondent. (By Air Mail.) LONDON, Feb. 9. Spring is not the romantic season in England. It is autumn. Statistics from the Registrar-Gen-eral show that more people marry during the third quarter of the year than; in any other period. The number of marriages solemnised in England and Wales during 1933 was 318,191, against 307,184 in the previous year. -Thirty-two per cent, were in the third quarter. This preference for autumn has been constant since: the beginning of the century. Before that the fourth quarter was the fav-j ourite. Twenty-nine youths and 706 girls married at sixteen, the lowest legal age. The twenty-nine boys married girls up to twenty-one years of age, but the 706 girls married men of varying ages between sixteen and fifty years. In only four cases were tho bride and bridegroom both sixteen years old. The number of decrees nisi made airsolute was 4.042, an. increase of 148 over the preceding year. This is the highest divorce figure ever recorded. Tiie previous record was 4.018 in 1928. Tho births registered during the year numbered 580,413, a decrease of no fewer than 33.559. The birth-rate of 14.4 per 1000 population is the lowest recorded for England and Wales—o. 9 below 1932, the previous lowest.