LOVERS’ LAW

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 4 June 1923, Page 8

LOVERS’ LAW

Judge’s, Homily on Matrimony. ANGELS - WIVES. Women Who Can Display Temper. LONDON. From the time of Eve has there ever been a woman who has not been angry if a man lias made an engagement with her and has then forgotten it? The question was asked by Mr Justice Swut m the ivmg's Bench Division (London), when he laid-down the law for lovers. The action was one in which a girl sued a jitter and turner, for damages for breach of promise. Plaintiff, wno declared that nor fiance broke off the engagement because lie said she could not get on with her prospective mother-in-law, was awarded £‘so. Defendant’s mother stated that she never interfered in the matrimonial arrangements. Among the Judge’s comments were: Nobody who was engaged to bo married ever did come up to expectations. Love was proverbially blind. No doubt members of the jury 7 knew what it was to have courted an aiigel and found out after marriage that she iv as a mere human being like the rest. Everybody 7 who started on the other side of 30 started with the idea that the lady was perfect, without flaw, and that no woman, since ,Eve, at any rate, had ever been created anything like her. Yet everybody 7 knew that other men’s wives were sometimes perfect fiends for temper. The mere fact that a woman had a temper did not render her unfit for matrimony, or half the population of the world would never have been born. Half the wives in the world were women who at times could display a good deal of temper. The Judge inquired where,the ground was for pleading justification. Supposing a man says: “I like a woman of mild, docile character, who will acknowledge me as lord and master and bow down to my every wish, and I nave got engaged to a, woman who has a mind of her own, and wishes to be lord and master, and that I should bow down to her wishes. Would vou get damages there?” He would ask the jury whether they were satisfied that the defendant had pioved that the plaintiff, by reason of goneralby 361 '’ W&S * or ma ti'imony + n T H l^ ud l ge , pointed out to jury p II rL t I l iey hac nothing to do with those tions fnH 1 6 , who t Sieved that actions foi breach of promise of marriage should be abolished, and that there should be a close time, called the engagement period in which people should be able the better to make each be IV and there shouldf oe an actual trial so to speak ami blSf/om ft Si M , be alWd to’*™ view was wronl 10 PeUalty ' Tbat notmam! i; fli fcn<,a,lt ? aid ho could mother had £lO lfVi^WpTph! to sun e angelically and rebly- “Tf f S.’JSfe r* *° £<* wishes to kuep the -puT * S tu™ not say that. dld thin o, oisf> ■% said soniobad better tlkto T^ t° Id her conversation with. t 0 carr T on