DESERTED WIVES

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 140, 16 June 1913, Page 3

DESERTED WIVES

THE BURDEN OF PARENTHOOD

"These people were married in March, and the woman says that she was deserted in June; that is rather quick." So remarked Mr Justice Sim in • the Wellington Supremo Court. "That is nothing to a case I have coming on," said counsel. "The parties to this other action were married in the morning, and the woman went off by the afternoon boat to Sydney, and has not been heard of since."

This paragraph, which is going the rounds of the newspapers of New Zealand, draws attention to a most regrettable state of affairs which exists in the Dominion. It worries the charitable institutions, the Magistrate's Courts, the Supreme Courts, and all the philanthropic bodies winch bother themselves with the troubles of other people. A Christchurch Press reporter sought the opinions of those who might be regarded as experts. Mr li. W. Bishop, S.M.. said that he supposed the facts in the original paragraph were an exaggeration, as he had known few, if any, cases in

which separation had come so soon. "But, certainly, desertions are . increasing in number, _ and there is a weakening in appreciation of the responsibilities of marriage." •A gentleman who had watched the Courts as a journalist, and as a solicitor, for between twenty and thirty years, bore out that impression. As to the facts of the paragraph, they were not only possible, but probable. Cases of desertion at the church-door had come to his knowledge. .They were affairs in which a despicable person had inveigled another into the marriage state with no .intent to accept its obligations. Usually, however, desertion, or its equivalent, came after a number of years, when the increasing number of children combined with the poverty of the home, and the incompatability of the parties, made life unbearable. There was less of the old willingness to accept things as they were. Our system of education should "have helped to make the people more moral—most emphatically it had not. The sexes no longer respected each other as they should, and as they used to, and broken marriages followed lack of mental and moral stamina. _ A police officer of experience _sald that such cases of speedy desertion were not infrequent. Traced to their source, they usually "showed that there was a reason—drunkenness, misstatement of means, misstatement of /iffairs, lack of knowledge, or (most often) "the marriage of convenience.' Always there was something peculiar about'it, either on the part of the man or the woman. Often the parents had forced the girl into the mar-

riage, i Miss Carclale, secretary of the Coal and Blanket Fund, whose duties bring her into close contact with many such cases, says that they follow I usually after some years, when children come and the pinch of things is more keenly felt. Running through ■ ,the applications for relief which.had come to the fund, she read out in how many cases there were children. "And in v'si-ing these homes I have told the women folk time' and again that it is no wonder their husbands

drink, or otherwise misbehave, if they ire too slovenly tfo run the. household i oroperlv. I have seen beds unmade, S and the v.-nshing-up undone at 5.30 in the evening. w The secretary of the North Canterbury Ho3T>it".l" a-r.d Charitable Aid Board, M"1 * \V>.arton, said that he knew of rn.ses of such speedy desertion. T~; rr-r.'st cases tilings went well e^oii<-,h -antil a family came. There was r.^ed to make provision for the chiklrer? —ard so with the burden added, tho r>osifcimi became intolerable. The :V.r.ttor which the Board had urged' upon the Government was that it. and not the wife herself— who had seldom any pennies—should be responsible for the bringing back of deserters from Australia. Usually the cost was from £20 to £25 3 which was much beyond the woman's means. jln Ms experience, he _ had come across many cases in which reconciliation had followed such returns. He J supposed that there were at present I between twenty and twenty-five cases ; of deserted families who were receivi ing help from the Board.