MARRIAGE CONTRACT.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18170, 7 November 1930, Page 6

MARRIAGE CONTRACT.

WIFE NOT PLAYED PART. “TIRED OF HUSBAND.” MAINTENANCE ORDER DISCHARGED “A woman has a part to play In a marriage contract. You have not played your part. You come to Court and say you were forced to flee from your husband because of his excessive demands upon you. I don’t believe it. I think you had tired of your husband, and simply left him.” In these words Mr 'Wyvern Wilson, S.M., addressed a young wife named Marjorie Jessie Gillard, who applied to him at. Hamilton to-day for a variation of a maintenance order for £2 a week made in favour of her and her child in 1928.

Mr L. Tompkins, who appeared for the wife, said it was desirable that separate orders should be made for the wife ' and child. In the existing order separate sums were not set out for the wife and child.

Mr 11. J. McMullin appeared for the husband, Morton David Gillard, and asked for the discharge of the order. He pointed out that shortly after it was made husband and wife saw each other, and Anally it was agreed that the husband should get a job for both of them as a married couple on a farm. They subsequently went together to Onewhero, near Pukekohe, where they received £3 15s a week and a free house. The husband was to assist with the farm work, and the wife was to cook for him and the owner of the property, who was to have a room at the house. She only remained there a matter of ten_ days, however, when she left, ostensibly to bring their child from Rotorua, and she did not retui’n. The husband had written her one letter, to which she replied, saying she did not care for him any longer, and that she did not intend to return.

Evidence was given by the husband along these lines. Mr Tompkins stated that the wife’s life had been made such a burden by her husband’s constant demands, which sometimes amounted to brutality, that she was forced to leave him. 1

The wife bore this out in her evidence.

Cross-examined by Mr McMullin, she admitted that she knew another man in Rotorua, but denied any undue friendliness with him. She had seen her husband in Rotorua on one occasion since he left her, in company with a strange woman. Her husband had only written her one letter in two years, and had not asked to see his child during that time. Addressing the woman in the terms above, his Worship said her story in Court was not borne out by her letter to her husband after she had left him. His Worship did not consider she had carried out her part of the marriage contract. She had erred by not doing so, and he would discharge the order made in her favour. No matter how the wife had erred, however, the husband was bound to maintain his child. His Worship therefore made an order for the maintenance of the child at 15s a week, and for £2O arrears of maintenance for the child, to be paid at the rate of 5s a week. The claim for £ll2 arrears of maintenance made on behalf of the wifewould be dismissed.