THE MARRIAGE BAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE MARRIAGE BAR.

CIVIL SERVICE PENALTY. It appears to have been realised in the British Civil Service that the State’s bar on marriage is a serious disability for young people. Mr. T. C. Curtin, writing in the London Daily Telegraph, says: “Another woman has jumped the marriage bar in the Civil Service, and pretty obviously it is doomed. The former Miss A. C. Richmond, of the Ministry of Labour staff, it has been announced, has been retained in her position now that she has become Mrs. Gulland.” It appears that she is not the first woman to be retained after marriage, those in “key positions” being hard to replace evidently, The defence offered by the Department is even more significant than the event itself, in the view of the writer. It states that it thought it right to have a reasonable number of women in the higher ranks of the Department. . it was felt to be in the highest interest of the public that these women should be retained.

Mr. Currin comments: "This is not alone a defence of. a single precedent, but the assertion of a principle whicn means the. end of the’ marriage bar at least in any rigid form. Other Departments will find good reasons for the same departure, and there are no reasons why hundreds of other retentions should not follow in the future. The question is now agitating 80,00(1 other women civil servants.” The wotnen who spend years in qualifying themselves for the higher positions naturally wish the removal of the mar, as they regard it as penalising marriage, while the lower grades, who only do monotonous work with small pay, would gladly forsake it at any moment for marriage, and look to the gratuity or Government “dot” which they receive on marriage as an assistance to that end. That the removal of the bar means sometimes generous leave for maternity occasionally has been recognised in America.