REMARKABLE STORY

Southland Times, Issue 22207, 27 December 1933, Page 7

REMARKABLE STORY

MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE.

NO POWER TO GRANT RELIEF. Sydney, December 14 A remarkable instance of a “marriage of convenience” was before the Divorce Court in Sydney this week when Marie Ellen Watson sought a decree of nullity. She alleged that she was not really a consenting party to the performance of the marriage ceremony with William Brice London, but was induced to be a party to it under duress, by reason of fraud, misrepresentation or mistake. She stated in evidence that she had married the respondent to save him from prosecution for having told his employers that he was a married man so that he could draw the wages of a married man. The petition was dismissed. The Judge stated that he would send the papers to the Crown solicitor so that consideration could be given to the question of instituting criminal proceedings against the husband in respect of false pretences and in respect of his deliberate falsification of the original marriage certificate. The Judge said that at the time of the marriage ceremony petitioner was 19 years of age. There was no talk of marriage until one or two nights before the wedding, when the respondent told her that he was passing himself off to his employers, the Railway Commissioners, as a married man, and that he was likely to get into trouble, and might be sent to gaol for seven years. The parties separated immediately after the ceremony and had not lived together. “I have no doubt whatever,” commented the Judge, “that the petitioner, though at first she demurred, went through the marriage ceremony knowing perfectly well that it was a marriage and a binding ceremony, and that it would make them man and wife,” The belief that the petitioner could have the ceremony set aside within a few weeks did not absolve the girl from the legal consequences of the ceremony. While he had the greatest sympathy with the petitioner and a strong desire to grant her the relief she asked, the Judge said he did not see how he could strain the principles of the law which regulate the validity of such solemn contracts as marriage ceremonies to grant her that relief. It had to be conceded from her point of view that the case was a very hard one. Whether she was in a position to obtain any other form of relief was a matter on which he would not comment.

“So far as the respondent is concerned,” said the Judge, “I can only speak in words of strongest condemnation. He, apparently, practised a fraud upon his employers, and when he found himself in peril of being found out, prevailed upon the petitioner, who, I think, submitted weakly to his persuasion to go through the marriage ceremony, and he did not hesitate, on the evidence, to alter the date of the certificate to make it read October 7, 1926, instead of October 17, 1929, when the ceremony was actually performed.”