A MARRIAGE EXPERIMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13390, 19 January 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MARRIAGE EXPERIMENT.

STRANGE COMPACT AND ITS SEQUEL.

Xi:\v Vohk. December ?,.— A strange experiment in a new and improved form <>!' matrimony ended in failure yesterday, when the Supreme Court granted a decree of divorce to Mrs. G. 1,. Hunter, wife of the well-known Now York literary man, sometime editor of the Smart Set, and now resident in London-

According to his wife's testimony Hunter liad devised a refinement of marriage when live yours ago lie wooed and won .Martha Wis'iKT, daughter of Professor Wisner. She was then nineteen, and had already achieved distinction as a musician, with tin- promise of a great career. The court shin was apparently on conventional lines, since the wife stated that Hunter declared 1"- could, not. live without her. But while !"*ie wedding pea! was still ringing in her ears tin husband revealed views regarding marital relations far removed from the commonplace.

Love was to he entirely eliminated as a blot on the ideal marriage. Theirs was Jo he a partnership of ideas and ambition. They were, according to his ideas, to live together in a perfect comradeship closer than human affection. Each was to devote every energy to the development of the other's genius and ambition. She, with his encouragement and help, was to achieve a foremost place if the world of music and art, while he, stimulated by her success, became the greatest and most powerful man in the world.

Mrs Hunter did not entirely sympathise with this view, but- her husband, being fifteen years older, she accepted the sitmf-t-ion. She made timid efforts from time to time to break through the barrier of reserve, but each time Hunter told her .-ho was) young and romantic, and must learn better. She suggested diffidently after a time that perhaps the home would be happier if a baby's prattle was beard in it. He severely rebuked this Philistine notion, sayng that motherhood would run notion, saving that motherhood would mill her career and disturb the perfection of went abroad to live, and since March last had tailed to support her.