MODERN MARRIAGE.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 29, Issue 3, 1 May 1938, Page 3

MODERN MARRIAGE.

One of the Registrars m London has announced the fact that it is now increasingly common for young couples to consult him confidentially beforehand about divorce proceedings. It is really very hard to conceive the state of mind of these young people, presumably deeply m love and yet without the least confidence m each other. They apparently are ready to make any promises to each other, as long as it is clearly understood that they are not expected to keep those promises. The whole business has tempted a writer m the Manchester Guardian to drop into poetry, like Mr. Silas Wegg, and this is the result: — Come live with me and be my love; But let us first of all make sure That we our separate ways can shove II love's a stuff that won't endure. Come, let us tie the nuptial knot, With me as groom and you as bride; But let's be sure we know what's what In ways to get that knot untied. O tell me, tell me, Registrar (Before my neck receives the noose), Precisely what reliefs there are For those who wish to wriggle loose. The man who ties the knot should know Some tricks a little less seraphic; Who lets us m, should let us go — Or is it only one-way traffic? That cannot be, that must not be, Our pledges are but made to break; As someone says, "We must be free Who speak the tongue that Milton spake." Let no one, therefore, place a bar 'Twixt us and all the Law's sourcesTip us the wink, O Registrar, And tell us all about divorces! The whole affair is to Christian folk unutterably beastly, but ridicule is often a useful way of killing mischievous ideas.