BIGAMISTS AND LAW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19221, 9 January 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

BIGAMISTS AND LAW.

EXTRAORDINARY CASES. IRISH BARRISTER'S TANGLE. REFORM BEING CONSIDERED. Marriage in this country is 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 the 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 been misled—even the prisoner may have been misled—arid 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 of 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 of a most unpleasant business. However, it did not satisfy Brown. He 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 fire again. If her marriage with Brown was void, his marriage with Isabella must be valid, and incidentally ho was a greatly wronged man.

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 an nulled his marriage with the banker's daughter, and it looked as 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 been which prompted 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 Smalhvood put up his banns with May Taylor and married her. Ho gave his name as Small, perhaps because he had deserted from one regiment and enlisted in another. The girl was aware that the publication was made in the false name. Two years afterwards she married another man in a register office. Bigamous marriages nearly always take place in a register 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, Smalhvood applied to the Di- ( vorce Court for a divorce from his wife on the ground that she had committed bigamy with adultery. Then the 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 was 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 register office. Marriage reform is in the air, and some of the alterations with regard to the marriage of minors have been very welcome. This is another matter which is worth the consideration of Hie Legislature. A criminal judge should be invested with the power to pronounce a definitive decree that a bigamous marriage is null and void, and so get rid of it once and for all. •