BIGAMISTS AND LAW

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3248, 19 January 1926, Page 3

BIGAMISTS AND LAW

EXTRAORDINARY CASES. IRISH BARRISTER’S TANGLE. Marriage in this country la only effectively destroyed by death, divorce, or decree of nullity, writes Arthur S. May in the London “Weekly Dispatch.” It is not true that when anyone is sentenced for bigamy the bigamous marriage is at an end. It is true that if the convicted person was really married already th® bigamous marriage was never a marriage at all. It is the facts which get rid of the marriage, not the sentence Of the criminal court. The court may have bean misled —even the prisoner may have been misled —and It is not always safe to rely upon the facts being what they seem. Before the other party to a bigamous marriage marries again it Is wise, If it can be afforded, to go to the Divorce Court for a formal decree of nullity, and set a seal upon the past which cannot be broken. There was once an Irish barrister named Brown who was convicted ot bigamy in marrying Isabella, a daughter of the manager of the Royal Bank of Dublin, during the lifetime of his wife. May. The criminal court gave Brown seven years’ transportation, and the matrimonial court gave Isabella a nullity decree. It was a satisfactory settlement a most unpleasant business. However, It did not satisfy Brown, Ha stirred things up by causing May to be charged -with bigamy in marrying him, her husband, James Fitzgerald, being alive. May pleaded guilty to that, and got two months.. This fairly put the fat In the Are again. If her marriage with Brown was void, bis marriage with Isabella must be valid, and incidentally he was a greatly wronged man.

I The Crown intervened before his actual transportation and granted him a free pardon. Then he lodged an appeal to a higher court against the decree which annulled the marriage with the banker's daughter, and it looked os if he was bound to succeed. But the sentence of a criminal court is not binding upon a marriage tribunal. The facts were examined a second time and the decision arrived at was that, whatever the motives might have oeen which prompeted May to confess to a crime she had not committed, she was not Fitzgerald’s wife when she married Brown, in spite of May’s conviction the nullity of Isabella’s marriage was confirmed. One Smallwood put up his banns with May Taylor and married her. He gave his name as Small, perhaps because he had deserted from one regiment and unlisted In another. The girl was aware that the publication was made in the false name. Two years afterwards she married another man in a .registry office.

Bigamous, marriages nearly always take place In a registry office, because a bigamist has scruples about making an appearance in church. She was in consequence brought to trial for bigamy. pleaded guilty, and received sentence. Upon that, Smallwood applied to the Divorce Court for a divorce from his wife on the ground that sh e had committed bigamy with adultery. Then th e King's Proctor came upon the scene. The court declared that Smallwood’s marriage was null and void, the banns having been unduly published, and his petition dismissed accordingly. The conviction of May Taylor was thereby pronounced to have been’ a mistake. The inference to be drawn from that is that she was really the wife not of Smallwood but of the man she married in the registry office-

Marriage reform is in the air, and some of the alterations with regard to the marriage of minors hoev been very welcome. This is another matter which is worth th e consideration of the Legislature. A criminal Judge should bo invested with the power to pronounce a definite decree that a bigamous marriage is null and void, and so get rid of It once and for all.