WHY BIGAMY IS COMMITTED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17066, 20 August 1917, Page 6

WHY BIGAMY IS COMMITTED

REGISTRY OFFICE MARRIAGES AND THEIR DANGEROUS SECRECY.

Over ten thousand marriages! are celebrated at London registry offices alone every year, and it has. been estimated that one marriage in every five in England takes place in a registry office, . Since the war bigamy ha,s been prevalent, and this is no doubt due to the lax system of registry office marriages. It provided unscrupulous man with, a quick and comparatively simple and safe means of conducting their villainies. • ..-■.,

Several'times the Female Aid Society has petitioned for the abolition of that secrecy which enshrouds the celebration of marriages at the offices of Registrars. As the law stands at present the lack of adequate publicity in siich marriages affords undeniable facilities for immorality and for crimes against innocent and unsuspecting girls. '• Thp above-mentioned Society has suggested to the Home Secretary that publicity should be given to the 'notification of banns of marriage- by exhibiting a list of persons to be married in such fashion "in or outside the post-office nearest to the registry-office.* This would prevent cases such as the'following:

In one instance a man, while his wife was alive, married two other women at registry offices. ;In another a soldier took a young girl to an office in Bermondsey—not a registry office — where tne "marriage ceremony" was performed. The poor girl's discovery was as rapid as it was! sad.

It cannot be too widely known that any on o is free to call at a registry office to find out the names of those who are about to be married. But this'right is seldom if ever, exercised. So, it is the> secrecy, the ease with which the mar-

riage can be ' kept, dark," that forms the chief danger of weddings before a Registrar..

The following tragic case goes far to prove the base uses w which unspeakable scoundrels sometimes put registry offices. Somo time ago a girl, not then eighteen, met a man whose age was near the forties. S!:e was impressed by him and, after several meetings, he induced her to place her trust in him to such an extent as to leave her parents' home and marry him. Marriage was his proof of the honesty; of his intentions. '.. . ,

The two went to Leeds, and were there married at a registrar's. Then they went to London, and, later proceeded to Buenos Ayresi Even there all seemed well, as the man introduced his girl-bride to people supposed to be his sister and brother-in-law.

A fortnight passed, and then the accidental overhearing of a conversation opened the poor girl's eyes. She realised with terror that she was to be literally sold into slavery. She left the house and managed to escape, going to the home of a couple whose acquaintance she had been lucky enough to make during the voyage.

She learned in Buenos Ayes' that her supposed husband had previously lived there for seven years with a woman, and that he was the chief of a gang of white slave ti'aders! .

As the law stands at present, then, it is perfectly clear that these hole-and-corner registry office marriages are an undeniable danger in more ways than one.

No girl should dream of consenting to be married before a Registrar without first consulting her relatives or friends, or without making absolutely certain herself that she is not being duped into a marriage that is no marriage.