PROMISE "NOT TO NAG"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23055, 4 December 1936, Page 20

PROMISE "NOT TO NAG"

WIFE SIGNS DOCUMENT UNUSUAL CASE IN COURT When he applied to the magistrates at Kingston, Surrey, recently, for the reduction of a maintenance order, a man alleged that a document signed by his wife, saying that she undertook not to "nag or annoy" him, was a fake. Insufficient means was the ground of the application by the husband, Sydney Edward Cummings, of Putney. An order of £2 a week had been made in favour of Mrs Diane Mary Cummings, of Richmond, Surrey. Cummings, who denied that he was attempting to avoid his liability, stated that he was assisting his sister to run a motor business. Sometimes his sister gave him half a crown to go to the pictures. "You determined," asked Mr C. V. Bird, representing the wife, "before you were married, not to pay your wife "anything?" "No," replied Cummings. Mr Bird: You got your wife to sign a document? —No, it was a fake. Mr Bird then read the document, which, he recalled, was produced to the magistrates when the order was made in June. It ran:— " I, Diane Mary Beard, undertake by marrying S. E. Cummings not to nag or annoy or be suspicious of the -said S. E. Cummings and also to obey him. "I also agree not to accept alimony or monetary consideration or nroperty in the event of separation or divorce." Replying to further questions, Cummings admitted that he went in for motor racing, but said that the car he drove belonged to his sister. Evidence was given that Mrs Cummings had gone back to her old job as a manicurist.

Dismissing the application, the magistrates ordered Cummings to pay £1 Is costs.