MARRIAGE AT FIFTEEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

MARRIAGE AT FIFTEEN.

' THE CALL OF THE STAGE. TOO STRONG FOR YOUNG WIFE. Remarkable letters from a young w;fs ; who left her husband and children and went back to the stage were read at the WiHesden Police Court not long ago. when Harold Timothy Blok. an cmnibus driver, was summoned for failing to maintain his wife and two children. Mrs. Blob, who did not wear a wedding ring, said that shs was an actress rehearsing for a play at a London theatre. She was married when she was 15, and earning £6 a week on the stage, ana her married life had been five years ci continuous quarrelling. She left her husband several times to return to the stage, and relatives took charge- of the two children. < While she w-as on tour her husband wrote her letters, in which he signed himself " Your disgusted husband." Tn one letter was the following:—"The children s lives are in the melting pot, so 1 came to vou at the theatre seeking reconciliation, but you were worse than I thought vou. Do you forget the marriage vows you made in church, or is your memory as short, that your heart wounds heal qnicklv ? I would not live with you again if you were smothered in diamonds." In cross-examination, Mrs. Blok admitted writing to her husband while she was away: " The fool in ins won't, let me love you, and I simply can't come back to do the 101 jobs 1 loathe m the house. It is too awfal to contemplate. I cannot come-back to vou again, even for the. sake of the children." In another letter she said : " Tim, you are simply gr*at. If I had smiled and sung through it all as you did things might have been different and I might have been at home now. darning your socks. But I can t do it, Tim. and I shall never com? back as your wife. These are, horrible things to say. and some day I am going to be sorry for it, but I am going back to the stage all the same, because I cannot help it.. There is no one else yet. but the man to whom I give myself has cot to be some man." Later came:—" iorgive me, my most wonderful of lovers, but I can never return to you. 1 could not come back to home life for 1000 babies. The husband said he would have his wife ba«-k if she would give up the stage, roroe home, and " da.m his socks, but he would not support her unless she did so. Mrs. Blok, when asked if sh* were still infatuated with the stag", replied: " Nq I am not now, but 1 shall go bacK again; I must." The magistrate said that the case went to the very roots of matrimonial life. The wife would be far better looking after her husband, home and children than amusing the public. In dismissing the summons he urged her to try and lead the normal life of wife and mother. Mrs. Blok: I must fulfil my Etage contracts.