HIS DIVORCED WIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18762, 16 July 1924, Page 12

HIS DIVORCED WIFE.

"MAINTENANCE cancelled. CLAIMS OF NEW MENAGE. AMENDED DIVORCE LAWS. fBY. TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] CHEISTCHURCH. Tuesday. At the Magistrate's Court to-day Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., eased the burden of a divorced and second-time married man by cancelling the maintenance order held against him by his first wife.

The magistrate said the case was one in which complainant had obtained a divorce practically by consent. The parties had lived apart for a number of years. Complainant was free to marry again and the maintenance of his second wife must come first. The case was of some importance as an instance of a dass which was likely to come before the Courts fairly freely since the amendment in the divorce laws. The first wife had an order against the husband for 25s per week and th«n it had been arranged to get a divorce by consent—one of the new forms of divorce founded upon a separation for three years. The husband had now contracted another marriage, as he was perfectly free to do, and he was legally responsible for the maintenance of his present wife. At the tiime of divorce and at the present time the divorced wife was quite ahle to maintain herself. The ages of the parties did not appear in evidence, but he presumed neither of them was advanced in years. It seemed to him that since the making of tho maintenance order circumstances had so changed that the matter should bo readjusted. With complainant trying to maintain a wife on an income probably about the same as the divorced wife had he thought complainant's first duty was to his second wife and it seemed to be neither right nor fair that he should have to contribute to the maintenance of his divorced wife. It had been a divorco by consent without a fault on either side and the parties were apparently with equal means. He would make an order for cancellation of the maintenance order .and would" treat the parties equally by ordering each to pay costs.